Eat it Twilight
by liliaeth
Summary: The BAU has to deal with a serial killer who believes he's hunting vampires. The unsub's name, Dean Winchester.
1. Prologue

***September 13, 2009 18:45***

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"She was soooo over the top, man." Alicia laughed into the phone and put down her math book once and for all. "I think Miss Burns just misses Stan. Remember, she hasn't talked about him all week." Alicia could hear the giggle on the other end. "Oh Stan brought me roses," she said, imitating the teacher's voice. "Stan took me on a date, Stan this, Stan that… And then all of a sudden nothing… I can't believe I'm actually starting to miss our very own daily soap."

They'd just spent half an hour wasting time with homework and the remaining hour and a half talking about anything and everything on earth. Including, of course, a good dose of gossip about their teachers. What else ever happened in this town? But it was about time to say goodbye. Her mom had yelled up the stairs twice now, warning her to put down the phone. If she was stupid enough to make her mom call up a third time, she was sure to lose her phone privileges for a month.

Alicia picked up New Moon and put her head down on her pillow. She stared up at the ceiling, feeling her head spin. Miss Burns had told them to have book reports ready by tomorrow. She'd picked New Moon this time, figuring that since she'd already read it like a dozen times, it'd be a piece of cake. She'd been wrong. Miss Burns had reminded them that their life depended on getting a good grade this year. It had gotten a laugh out of most of the class. Her tummy was rumbling, but it wasn't time to eat yet. Not here, not now. So Alicia listened to the Jonas brothers and let them overwhelm the sound of incessant drums. In her mind she went to one of their concerts, and all she had to do was pick which one to kiss first.

The scent of her mom's herbs flowed out of the kitchen. Miniscule seeds floated through the air, between cracks and doorways along with the stench of Ricky's dirty diaper. The dog was eating, munching loudly next to the washer that was turning downstairs. Mom had promised that her new shirt would be ready to wear by morning. She could hear Ricky watching TV while moving around in his baby walker.

The neighbours were having another fight. She buried her face in her hands just to stop herself from heading over to the window and yelling at them to just kiss and make up for crying out loud. It's what they always did, so why the constant drama? They behaved like those kids on one of those nineties teen shows. She wondered if they'd been stuck in that time or something. At least she was smart and responsible and God, she needed something. She licked her gums and tasted her teeth; they felt too large for her mouth at times.

When she heard a scuffle on the railing, she wondered if the neighbour's cat was making another visit. She instinctively grabbed the box with treats. Tiger often came by; sometimes he'd scratch his claws on the windowpane. It's why she kept the treats in the room, she'd shake some out and give them to him in return for letting her scratch him behind the ears. Tiger had this little white spot around his eye that stood out against his orange fur. It made it look like he was wearing an eye patch. The tomcat hadn't come by since she got back. The one time he saw her, his hair had stood up and he'd hissed at her while backing away.

She went up to the window, looked up and flinched as the windowpane shattered. She could hear mom yelling downstairs. The man's face was hidden in the sunlight barely getting past his back. All she could see was the crossbow held in his hands. She shivered in the light; it hurt her eyes. Her mouth fell open, but she stayed quiet, frozen like a deer in the headlights.

The freak looked as if he'd stepped right out of a grunge cover. It was the way he was dressed in jeans, a plaid shirt and a denim jacket. If he'd been a bit less scruffy she could imagine him on some photo shoot. Hell, even with the scruffiness. Hot; definitely, but he was no Edward. Even Simon wasn't that hot. The guy was in serious need of some reliable fashion advice. Crew cuts were just so passé. He raised his crossbow. It took her a second to realize that she ought to be scared. What was he doing? And with a crossbow?

She screamed in pain as the bolt hit her in the chest. She struggled against the numbness. There were footsteps running up the stairs, imom/i. She had to try and put every bit of effort in the fight to get back up. But her limbs did no more than tingle. It felt as if the blood in her body had stopped flowing and would not follow her commands. She needed to move.

She reached for his leg, or she wanted to. But even inches were beyond her. The man grabbed the knob and locked the door.

He was just a man, only a man. She needed to get away now! She couldn't even find the breath she needed for another scream.

"Please, help me." Why hadn't her mom heard her, iplease mommy help me!/i

Alicia stared wide-eyed as the man pulled out a big ass knife and knelt next to her, his hand on her shoulder. She started crying. This was so unfair! She was supposed to live forever.

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***September 14, 2009 6:21***

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Sam woke up to the sound of knocking on the walls; telling him to stop the goddamn screaming already. Lucifer had come calling, again.

The first night it had happened, he'd packed his stuff almost before he'd rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. He'd just thrown his key at the motel clerk and didn't even bother to resign his job at the bar. Then he'd gone to his car and called Dean. He needed help and even now, Dean was still the first to call. In Sam's mind, he always would be.

He'd stepped into his car and drove off. He didn't really drive anywhere, had no idea where he could go. He just drove and drove until his eyelids started drooping. He barely managed to park the car on the side of the road before he fell asleep behind the wheel. After Dean… after Dean told him goodbye, he couldn't move, shocked, his heart beating a thousand miles an hour. His hands had held the steering wheel as if it were a saving grace. He'd put his head on the wheel, grabbed a crucifix and prayed.

"They won't listen. You know that, don't you?" He'd looked up, scared of who he'd find. Madison had looked at him, one hand on his knee. The other rested over the blood from the bullet wound in her chest. "They don't care about you. Why would they?"

He could see the seams of the wheel pushing into his skin as he turned the car around and drove back. Her bloodied hand covered his.

"I never stood a chance, Sam. Not with the Winchester brothers on the job. I could have had a life, some kind of life, if you'd let me. If you had just tried to lock me up. If you had tried to save me." But he did try. "I know you tried, Sam, but deep down inside, you were happy to be rid of me. Happy that you didn't have to learn to love again. Not so soon after Jess."

He'd turned away, stared at his reflection and the darkness behind the glass. By the time he found the strength to face her, she was gone and 'he' sat there. "There is no redemption Sam, for neither of us."

He woke up as headlights from oncoming traffic hit the windows. He stared into blue and white flashlights and looked up at a cop who was knocking on his window, shining a torch in his face. "Come on buddy, this isn't a camping spot."

He wiped his hands across his eyes. "Are you drunk?" The cops voice sounded like harsh gravel.

Sam quickly shrugged and looked away. The cop went back to his car and Sam shivered.

His fingers had twitched as he turned the car and went back for real. By the time he drove back into town, he had to ask for a new motel room, The clerk looked at him as if he were insane. Maybe he was. Sam looked on in envy as a short balding man carried his blushing bride over the threshold of his old room.

A mere three hours had passed and he was right back where he started from.

Back in the same town, the same motel. But this time even he couldn't fool himself that he 'could' ever lead a normal life. He could pretend he was like everyone else. But he was no longer fooling himself that it would last. He fell asleep as soon as he dropped on the bed. It was almost one. Ava smiled at him. She'd been his sister in blood. Born like him out of a demon's deal, fed with demon blood when she was an infant, just like him. Would Lucifer now be wearing her body, if she'd been the one to win? If she hadn't died, would she have said yes? He was almost afraid to turn away by now, knowing that if he did, they'd be gone and Lucifer would be with him instead. The scraggy man looked at him with that soft gentle smile as if he actually cared about Sam. How miserable did you have to be, to have the Devil feel sorry for you?

The third night Sam had looked at his razor for over an hour. The only thing that had stopped him from cutting his wrists was looking in his mirror and seeing Dean's little brother. Dean might never trust him again. Dean might even be right about that. But Sam hoped Dean wouldn't want him dead.

Besides, dying now would be taking the easy way out. If it even lasted.

He grabbed a washcloth and wiped it across his eyes, unwilling to go back to sleep. He took the remote and turned on the TV.

"A second body was found in Garber, Pennsylvania. Sixteen year old Allison Stein was found decapitated in her bedroom at her father's home. This is the second such murder in the small community after seventeen year old Alicia Johnson was murdered last night. The suspect is still at large."

Sam couldn't help listen and wonder. His hand was almost on his Blackberry, as he thought of all the things that would kill by decapitation. Things like Hunters

Hank and his friends had left town. He wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not. Maybe he should go look for them. They were Hunters, if he told them the truth, if he told them about Lucifer ...

b*September 20, 2009 20:15*/b

Derek noticed the car first. This was only supposed to be a chance to warn a potential victim, get her to safety. Her name was next on the list, more than that, it was last on the list. Right after their missing girl's. If the unsub got this one as well, they might lose their last chance to catch him in the act. The dark Chevy Impala stood ominously, a street back. The hood was still warm. He hit the speed dial to Rossi as soon as he saw it, hoping for reinforcements to get there soon.

When he got to the building, he couldn't help stare up. It was one of the only high-rises in the city. It was rundown, had about ten or twelve floors and of course, the girl had to live on one of the top floors. Almost as if God himself was against him, there was an out-of-order sign stuck next to the elevator. Derek tried the button anyway, just to be sure. The light didn't even turn on. He took a quick look at his watch. The sound of sirens grew louder, but he couldn't waste time to wait for back up. Instead he forced his legs up the stairs, floor after floor, cramps or no cramps. He pushed his limits as far as he could take them. What else was he supposed to do? Let some girl die because of a cramp?

The FBI agent barely managed to keep himself from bumping into some nerdy guy in a trench coat perched in the middle of the stairway on the ninth floor. Derek made a quick note of the man and ran on, his breath growing more laboured at each landing. He jumped two or more steps at a time until he reached his destination. The number, ten, glared at him in accusation. People in the hallway stared at him as if he were mad. Derek burst through the crowd and moved right to the door he was looking for. Then he heard a scream. He didn't even bother to see if the door was locked or not before he kicked it in. He heard loud thumps coming from his left. Derek held his gun at ready and tore the door open. It gave way to a built in coat closet. He hesitated when he noticed the woman lying on the ground. She was bound and gagged, but she motioned her head towards the hallway.

He left her behind and moved on through the hall, aware of any change in sounds. He was ready for gunfire as he kicked in yet another door. Wooden block letters marked it as Lizzie's.

Their unsub was crouched over the girl's body, finishing off his last cut. The girl's head rolled sideways a few feet away from the body. When the murderer finally turned towards the door Derek stilled at the sight of blood spattered on the man's face, shirt and pants.

Derek lifted his gun, aiming it straight between the bastard's eyes.

"You're under arrest," he stated coldly, in control, every inch the federal agent. Anything to keep from letting out his anger at failing yet another little girl whose only crime was to be a Twilight-fan.

"Not again." The unsub stated."What is it with you people?" he sounded almost tired. "She was already dead." The words came out as by rote, as if he knew Derek wouldn't believe him before he even said anything in protest. The man raised his arms. Morgan knew it wouldn't be that easy so he kept his gun on their main suspect.

"Drop the knife."

The unsub smirked, and for a moment Derek wondered if the psycho was going to jump at him with it. With this guy, who knew? He'd already killed eight teenagers in the last week alone. Derek almost wished he would, it'd give him an excuse to just shoot; no trial, no parading in front of the cameras, no attention to raise the murderer's ego, simple righteous judgement.

He forced down the idea and behaved like the professional he'd been trained to be.

The knife hit the floor. Morgan pushed the bastard to the floor a bit harsher than he should have,. "Where's Sharon Miller?" He demanded. The murderer muttered something, but it was too low for Derek to overhear.

Three SWAT guys came running into the room, weapons at ready, barely lowering their guns as they noticed that the suspect was already down.

Derek got up and let the cops take over. He pretended not to notice when one of the cops came close to pushing the man over as he was being cuffed. Rossi and Prentiss entered the room; they'd been no more than a few steps behind the cops.

Derek was glad that no one had mentioned anything about him going after the subject on his own. It had been a risk, but if he hadn't done so, the murderer would have probably been out of the room before they made it to the right floor. The guy had been slippery enough to evade them on the last two crime scenes, despite the presence of half the city's police force.

"You have the right to remain silent, anything you say can and will be used against you." The lead officer stated the far too familiar phrases with a wide range of emotions. Relief that they finally got him, but mostly rage, that it had taken them this long to do so.

"Oh come on." The unsub repeated. "A bit more careful will you? I'm delicate." It wasn't until then that Derek noticed the bandage on the man's neck.

"Shut it Winchester."

Morgan closed his eyes and held his breath before staring into the suspect's green eyes, old eyes that seemed strangely at odds with the wink, or the smart ass remarks. It was almost as if he was stuck playing a role that no longer fit. The uniforms dragged him up, his hands cuffed behind his back, as Rossi stared after him.

"So how did he fake his death this time?"

"Rossi?"

"Henrickson called in their death, an hour before.... They killed all those people just to cover their tracks." It wasn't quite shock, they knew what people could be capable of. But to see Winchester act as if he was being dragged away from a misdemeanour instead of...

Prentiss moved over to the corpse, careful not to step in any of the evidence. "His brother's probably got the other girl."

Derek shot into action. He ordered the uniforms to start checking the immediate area. He forced himself to think of anything he remembered on the two brothers, one a psychopath, the other reportedly either his unwary accomplice, or the one hallucinating and telling his brother who to kill.. They'd need extra security as well; anything to make sure that the younger Winchester wouldn't be able to break his brother out of jail. The mass murder in Colorado was fresh in his mind. Over ten people had died in Monument and to think the Winchesters had simply stepped away and faded into the background... the search called off, their files closed. What would stop them from trying the same trick a second time. Derek followed the officers downstairs. Winchester needed to be thoroughly checked. The man was a prima escape artist, you could probably stake your life on it that he was wearing a lock pick or two.

It wasn't about catching him, it was about holding on to him, until he was in a maximum security prison, until neither his brother, nor his friends could come break him out.

Derek wondered who'd they'd offended to get this case thrown at them. And most of all, they'd need a better idea of what had been happening in the area to lure the Winchester brothers to the town. Because with them, what lured them in was often as dangerous if not more so, than they themselves were.


	2. Chapter 1

**'The worst evils in the -world are not done by evil people, but by good people who do not know they -are not doing good' –  
Reinhold Niebuhr**

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**September 15th 2009 11:15**

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There had been three victims by the time the BAU were called in on the case. The papers had dubbed their killer the Twilight Slayer because all three of the girls were fans of the books and movies. Their rooms were filled with posters of Edward and Bella, while two of them had had Twilight action figures.

Reid had picked up one of the books after Prentiss joked about how it'd be harder to find a girl that hadn't read the books, than one that did. Hotch grumbled about the name and had ordered JJ to squash it as soon as possible. The cops weren't too happy about that, but it needed to be done. In a lot of cases, it made the police look in the wrong direction. They'd reach for the easy conclusions before they ever got close to solving the case. It took attention away from the actual crimes, pointed them in specific directions, before they even took a real look at the case.

Yes, all of the victims were Twilight fans, but that didn't have to mean that there was a connection to the books. Not necessarily. And even if there were… it could blind them to better leads.

Prentiss was questioning the father of the second victim. Isaac Stein was a single father, a divorcee; his wife had left him two years ago. JJ said Mrs Stein was flying over and would arrive in a few hours. Not that it would make much of a difference. As far as they could see, the woman wasn't a suspect. She hadn't come to visit her daughter in the past six months. The father said she was too busy 'fucking' their old gardener to even call her daughter when she graduated junior high.

The house had been filled with pictures of the Allison as she progressed through the years, pictures that showed the girl alone, getting a variety of awards, trophies. None of them had either the father or the mother in them. It was almost as if the father had been trying to prove just how proud he was of his daughter, while he couldn't be there for her in person. Derek wished he knew who the man was trying to prove it to, because it sure as hell wasn't to his daughter.

Derek moved up to the bedroom and slowly emptied his mind of all preconceptions. He needed to look at the room as the suspect would have seen it. He noticed a draft. He checked the window and noticed that it hadn't been fully closed. There were breaches in the paint. The unsub had scratched it when he entered the room. The victim had been sitting in front of her laptop. She'd been chatting with a friend, when her murderer arrived. He had hit her with a crossbow bolt before she could get halfway up. The mouse had still been in her left hand as she fell to the floor. It was one of those pink sparkly plug ins. From the bruises, he'd then held her down; his hand forced over her mouth, some blood that wasn't her blood type had been found on her lips. Forensics said it was fresh, couldn't have been shed more than a few minutes before her death. She'd tried to bite her attacker. There had been abrasions on the side of her mouth.

Derek fought to remember any details he'd read in the report From the spray of the blood it seemed her assailant hadn't bothered to knock her out first. He'd started cutting while she was still conscious. The coroner said that she had most likely been fully aware as her attacker pushed his knife into her throat. The blood spatters confirmed that she had tried to turn her head. Derek tried to put himself into the killer's head. What had the room looked like when the man entered? What had caught his attention? Why this room, why this girl? What had made her stand out to him?

He'd managed to get up to the fifth floor, probably using the fire escape. From the look of the window, he probably shot her with the crossbow before entering the room. He'd left the crossbow bolt stuck in her shoulder. The coroner was checking it for paralysing agents.

The unsub silenced her, so she couldn't call attention to him. Then… he stayed in the room. Partial prints were found on the computer. The unsub had tried to wipe them off, but he had swiped too vaguely to get rid of them all. It mattered that the unsub hadn't been wearing gloves. Everything else about him screamed professional, except for that. Derek knew he had to find out why, what it said about their suspect could solve their case.

The cops were packing the computer up for Garcia. They knew that the unsub had been going through the victim's chat logs, before he wiped out most of them. If there was a way to get their hands on those chat logs it might give them a heads up on who their unsub was going to go after next.

There were no footprints in the blood and the unsub had shown some concern over the victim once she was dead. He had pulled down her skirt and straightened her legs, there was no trace of sperm and the body hadn't been violated beyond the murder. He'd even taken the head that had rolled under the desk and placed it carefully next to the body.

Stabbing would have implied impotence, but there was no stabbing. In fact, from the look of the cut, the unsub had been experienced enough to get through the tissues in as few cuts as possible, efficient and if not painless, at least not half as bad as it could have been. It didn't look as if he'd been trying to torture his victim. Derek tried to check for any other clue of the unsub's intentions. There was no writing on the walls, accusing the victim of anything. The death had been horrifying, but the victim's body hadn't been mutilated after her death. It was as if the death was the point and she returned to being a human being once life left her body.

Derek picked up one of the books from the stack lying beside the girl's bed. He found a book mark at the eleventh chapter. He noted the text on the card.

_i"More than anything, I wanted to be fierce and deadly, someone no one would dare mess with. Someone who would scare Sam Uley silly. I wanted to be a vampire./i_  
Bella Swan, New Moon, Chapter 11, p.263"

"What do you think Morgan? Does this belong to the victim or to the unsub?" Derek hadn't heard Emily approach until she spoke up.

"I don't know, the same bookmark was found at the other two victims' homes." He was glad he was already wearing his gloves as he took a better look at the piece of paper. He was careful, oh so careful not to smudge anything on them before placing both it and the book in an evidence bag, making sure to note the place the bookmark had been at in the book.

"So did he give it to them to mark them as vampires, or did he pick them because they fantasized about being vampires?" Emily was looking at the poster on the wall. Edward and Bella, with Edward glowering over Bella's shoulder as if ready to bite her neck. "What else do the victims have in common?" She asked, moving on to the next target.

Derek hesitated. "Alicia Ramsey and Allison Stein were Caucasian., Susan Kim was Asian. Both Ramsey and Kim were Evangelical, Stein was Jewish. They all went to the same school, but were in different classes. Ramsey and Kim were 14, Kim four months younger than Ramsey. Stein was 16. They all read Twilight and had all watched the movie."

"Mister Stein said that all three of them had signed up for summer camp. All three of them were on the list for the camp's creative writing course. We need to call Garcia, tell her to look up the names of all the kids on that list. "

"Derek." He looked up. Rossi was standing in the door. "They found two more bodies. A male and a female, they've been dead for at least a day."

"That makes it five." He whispered.

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***August 30 2009 5:25***

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Sharon jumped off the bus and waved at her dad. A huge grin showed off his white shiny teeth as he marched over, moving past Marissa who groaned audibly. Sharon patted her on the shoulder and pushed her towards Vinnie. The guy was obvious, but Sharon didn't think he'd ever get lucky with the girl.

Sharon gently dabbed her lips and tried to look anywhere but at the huge artery throbbing wildly under her father's dark skin. She could see the veins all over his face and neck and hear his blood pumping. She took a deep breath before grabbing her bag and pulling it over her shoulder. The bag had barely been opened in the entire week she'd been gone.

The other girls greeted their families. The Kims were hugging little Susan, she was the youngest of their group, her dark black hair tied carefully in a knot behind her face. Danita Menendez was kissing her boyfriend. He'd arrived in his truck. Danita had asked their maker permission to get him to join the family. She'd received it.

Sharon handed over her bag before she turned back one last time. Her father pushed the bag into his squad car. She teased him about using it for off duty trips. He gently slapped her on the back and closed the lid of the trunk. She watched their little group. It was strange how they still fit amongst all the other kids. Her father never even noticed the difference as the sun rose over them. She slapped down her sunglasses and moved to the shadows, cringing in the light.

Alicia stood under the lamppost, with her bags at her feet. She was waiting for her parents to arrive. Simon still sat in the front of the bus while Ms Burns opened the school doors. Everything seemed so normal. Sharon ran back to the bus, yelling at her dad that she'd forgotten her book bag. She shared a quick glance with Simon, his white skin at odds with hers. His tongue played between his lips, so very sure of himself as his hand patted his leg. She almost wanted to lean against him and purr. She didn't. He didn't touch her, she wanted him to, they were mere inches apart.

He pushed her back out and she could almost feel the grin follow her down the road as her father drove the car back to the house.

One week gone, but not home.

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***September 21st 2009 11:46***

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Sam was working in the bar when he heard something on TV. He looked up to see Dean's face on the screen above him. His first thought was 'oh shit'. Well no, his real first thought was, 'Damn it Dean, you need a haircut.", then he thought 'oh shit'.

"After two weeks of terror and the deaths of eight local teenagers, the police finally made an arrest. The suspect was brought in to Garber's police station under heavy attention of both the local media and a crowd of onlookers. His identity is currently being withheld out of fear of retaliation, but sources within the police have confirmed that the suspect was on the FBI's most wanted list in relation to a series of previous offences."

It was only a glimpse as the cuffed man raised his head for a second but Sam knew for sure.

Sam dropped his mop

"The police have asked the press to spread the picture of a man wanted for questioning in regards to the case." Sam could feel his blood freeze in his veins as he noticed a mug shot of his own face looking back at him. He wondered how many times this particular bit of news had come onscreen before he'd had a chance to notice it. He'd been restocking the storage room in the past hour.

The picture was three years old, but still obviously him. Sam looked around, he tried to spot who else was watching. Forget passport pictures, mug shots were the way to make you look like an axe murderer. Especially if they actually came along with a newscast that said you were connected to a serial killer.

"If you see this man, do not approach him, he is considered highly dangerous and most likely armed. Inform your local police station immediately." They showed images of the police surrounding a crime scene. "Once again, after eight murders in less than a week the police have captured a suspect in the Twilight Slayings. The Garber police still warn parents to keep their children inside until they are sure the situation is under control. "

Sam stepped over the mop It took every bit of effort he could find inside of him not to kick the bucket at his feet against the wall. He had to think. He was several states away from Dean right now. He could pretend that he just looked like Sam Winchester right? Why would he have anything to do with the case? He was just some college drop out working in a bar several states away… That'd work, right up until they took his fingerprints.

"Sam, is that your brother?" he heard Lindsey ask him, a lot louder than he'd wanted to hear. She had kept on asking him questions, ever since he'd fought off those hunters. "Did he really…" do what the newscaster said he did, kill those kids? Sam wasn't sure how to answer that one. He didn't know the case. If he had time to look things up, he might know for sure. But he hadn't even tried. It was Dean. His brother wouldn't kill people without a good reason, especially children. Not if he were himself. But he doubted that Lindsey would understand it, even if he did try to explain it. She might think that she had an in on his life now, but she didn't. She was just a civilian and the more he allowed her to be brought into his life, the worse it'd get. Keep her out of it, before she was yet another face for Lucifer to use in his dreams.

The sirens grew louder in the background. Four years of running from something that was more like a bump in the road than the actual threat the cops probably thought themselves to be. It was hard to be scared of prison, when you had Lucifer to look forward to. The cops, the feds, the law in general, they thought they were the main players in this little game. To them it was a classic game of cops and robbers, with them as the heroes coming in to stop the big bad monsters. In reality; they were no more than sharp pebbles in the way of a barefoot runner, while the demons and the angels played with them like chess pieces. Sam could see Lindsey stand there, she was wrong as well. She was wrong in the way she looked at him, as if she knew him. As if she could protect him. She didn't have a clue.

It was like Jess had said, she was dead as soon as he said hello. And Lindsey looked so much like her. He remembered the nurse the devil had worn last night. The poor woman had never even got an answer when she asked them why she had to die.

"I've got to go."

"But… can't you just talk to the cops? You didn't have anything to do with it. You've been here for the past two weeks."

And that'd work if this were the only case they were wanted for. "It's not about that." was all he said, "Dean and I… the work we do, the work I did, they don't understand and they're better off for it." And so are you, his mind screamed. It was all he had left to protect her

He had to get to his motel room and leave town, go undercover. This case had gone national way too fast and he wasn't sure if there was anywhere he could even try and hide. He grabbed his stuff out of his locker and was stopped by Lindsey. He flinched as he noticed someone blocking the light.

There was someone standing in the door, Sam eyes darted from one side of the bar to another. Two deputies were coming in through the front; he could see one more at the back. There were probably several others that he didn't see right away. The sirens didn't stop, and he could see the lights from the squad cars through the windows. He grabbed his phone and started dialling. Not that he wanted to, but he'd had Castiel's number in his phone, ever since Cas had called them at the hospital. An angel with a phone… it sounded like the start of a bad joke.

The cops were on him before he could finish giving Cas his location.

"Can I help you officer?" was all he could think of saying before they manhandled him to the floor. They frisked him and seemed surprised when all they found on him was a knife. Lindsey tried to stop them, he could barely follow what she was saying and he actually knew her. They pushed her out of the way and forced him out of the building. He should probably kick out and get away, but what if they started shooting? There were too many people around and someone, Lindsey, could get hurt.

Sam struggled against their hold as they put him in the back of the squad car. It was more for show than an actual fight to keep them from taking him. His hands ached, wrapped in cuffs that stung at his wrists. The cops glared at him as he pretended to ask what this was about.

Lie, lie, lie, like the monster he was. How much of a man was he really, if even the devil was better at the truth than he was.


	3. Chapter 2

***September 12th 2009 21:15***

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* * *

**

It was long dark by the time the teen got to the abandoned factory. The doors were locked with a rusty chain that hadn't been touched since the owners last laid hands on the place. Teens had been ignoring the same chain for years. They'd slipped in through the broken windows, through an opening along the fire escape on the second floor or just climbed in through the basement. All of those had got closed off sooner or later and still it was easy enough to slide up to one of the windows on the first floor and slip inside. She passed Danni and George on the way down. Danita had lured him here, the day after she got back home. They'd started kissing, until she offered him a drink. When he'd tried to refuse she'd held him down and made him drink their maker's blood, telling him she loved him. Sharon and the others had been standing on watch, ready to help her if George had tried to escape before she was finished. He'd only just been released from his chains. Sharon bit her lips and had to stop a surge of jealousy at the thought of having someone of her own.

The others were spread over the couches in the main room. Their feet were up from the dirty floor or lying flat down on the carpets that had been slipped in over the years. Simon was sprawled over his makeshift throne, trying to look regal while ignoring the holes in the blanket he'd thrown over the once comfy chair. She couldn't believe she used to be impressed by the scene. This used to be their palace, nowadays, all she could see was the holes and the dust. There were rats all over the building. She threw a few of the CDs she'd stolen earlier that day on top of the pile before grabbing a bottle of soda. No one ever suspected the Sherriff's daughter of anything.

The player was stuck on one of Alicia's CD's. Miley Cyrus, again, it was enough to make anyone want to slit their wrists and pierce their eardrums. God, couldn't that girl ever listen to anything halfway decent? Sharon rolled her eyes and pulled her skirt down. The damn thing had a tendency to creep up at the most embarrassing times.

She tried to avoid looking at the other end of the room, the door to the storage room, the one that held the freezers. They hadn't bothered to turn those on, but they did use them for food storage.

Liz and Susie were finishing dinner in the corner. Sharon felt sick to her stomach and hungry at the same time. This so wasn't what she'd imagined being a vampire would be like. It was nothing like the books described it.

They were supposed to be amazing. Not… this. Feeling hungry, no matter how much she ate, hearing heartbeats all around her all the time. She'd tried to use earplugs, but they didn't even keep out the worst of it. And Simon, he barely even noticed her anymore. Not now that he had Anne sitting on his lap. All because she wouldn't put out for him like Anne did. Sharon hated her.

She'd tried to obey orders, go home, be inconspicuous, but the longer she spent time with her dad and her little brothers, the hungrier she'd felt. She hated looking at the boys and hearing their heartbeats, reminding her of the blood drumming inside of them. She hated the times that she looked at Mike and Steve and all she could see was nice juicy steaks, making it harder and harder to see them as her little brothers. Things shouldn't be like this, her family shouldn't be a cover that bored her more with every passing day.

Was this what Bella had felt like when Edward turned her? This emptiness inside, that pushed you away from everyone you knew? Had Bella wanted to tear her father and friends apart in the only way she had left to be close to them? She didn't know. What scared her most was how little she cared. The only thing that mattered was the blood on Liz and Suzie's lips as they gently sucked in and enjoyed the rush.

She walked a steady pace towards the freezer and the girls left, locked up inside. She recognized their faces. She didn't remember their names, just some drop outs, runaways, who nobody even thought about anymore. Far too easy to find on the streets. They had been taught to be careful whom they fed on, so the hunters wouldn't find them. As if there was anything in the world that should scare them! Alicia came up behind her and they both took an arm of the girl in front of them and bit in. The extra set of teeth felt as unfamiliar as a pair of braces.

There was no such thing as vegetarian vampires either. Stephanie Meyer was suuuuch a liar.

* * *

***September 16th 2009 15:23***

* * *

The wall was covered with pictures; about five of them depicted young teenage girls. One showed a teenage boy. Next to it was a list of names, about twenty or so kids ranging between the age of 14 and 18. The school had provided the list after some prodding. The principal seemed pretty unconvinced that the camp had anything to do with the case, but once sheriff Miller had asked her for it, using that smooth voice of his, they'd had it in their hands within hours.

Camp Dowry was a well known institution in the area. The camp had been arranged by the county and brought kids together from about ten schools in the direct area. Activities ranged from literary clubs and dramatic arts to archery and obstacle courses. The roster changed from years to year, but the camp's caretaker was well known and much beloved. Mama Donna, an elderly woman far in her sixties was known to pretty much every kid and parent in town. Many of them had had her as camp leader even in their own childhood. Teachers and parents often volunteered at the camp. And Ms Burns, the local English teacher, said she'd served as a drama coach and chaperone this year.

Donna Martin had been torn up by the very idea that her camp could possibly have any connection to the gruesome murders and had asked Ms Burns to bring the list in her place. The kids on the list were all from Garber's Open Plains High School. Reid and Prentiss were going through the files, trying to find out the most likely victims. There were too many kids to put police protection on all of them.

The most they'd been able to do was to warn the parents, but how much would that help when most of the previous murders had happened at the victims' homes, several of them in the children's own bedrooms.

"So what do we know?"

"We're dealing with a mission oriented killer." Emily stated, her voice sounded confident. He hoped it matched her state of mind.

Hotch turned to her. "Why?" His hand moved to his chin. Morgan could practically read the unspoken question in the officers there to listen to them: 'What does that even mean?'

"None of the murders seem to be sexually motivated. The unsub goes after high risk victims which require a high amount of planning. We're fairly certain our unsub is a man because the detectives found a man's footprint in the blood of one of the victims. Yet he doesn't seem to be out for a hand to hand struggle." Emily pointed out some of the pictures. "At first sight it seems that the unsub could be somehow physically weak, since he's paralyzing his victims before approaching them. Yet the decapitations seem to have had great strength behind them, because of the limited amount of blows needed to get through the victims' cartilage." She hesitated a moment, as if trying to make sure if she's right.

"I think he's avoiding fights, not because he's scared of them, but because he's trying to get this over with, with as little of a fuss as possible."

Hotch nodded, it seemed she was confirming something he already suspected. "And then there's the bookmarks. All the girls had one of those in their rooms. Most of the victims had previously shown a fascination with Twilight and fantasies about being turned into a vampire." She looked at the board for a second. "The way he kills them, it's very specific, very ritualistic. He isn't just murdering them; he's slaying them, as if he thinks they're vampires. Once the 'threat' is gone, they become children again, and he has no further desire to hurt them. So he treats the bodies respectfully."

"I agree." Derek said, more for the sake of the cops watching them, than to hear his own voice. It was the same reasoning that had been going through his head for the past few hours. "The MO might seem horrific, but the unsub has no real interest in torturing the victims. He doesn't play with them, there's no proof of any kind of interaction with the girls before he kills them and no evidence of him trying to gain power over them during or after their deaths. In fact, their deaths are quick, calculated and performed in as little an amount of time as possible."

"All he cares about is taking them down as quickly and efficiently as he can. I think he's mostly interested in the girls; the boy he's killed seems more of an afterthought, like he hadn't planned for him to be there, but killed him anyway. He probably thought that the girl had infected her boyfriend."

The local Sheriff stood by the wall, his arms were crossed and he looked as if he was trying to protect himself. Derek wasn't really focussing on him, but the man's heavy presence kept pulling at his attention.

"So why these girls?" Hotch got closer to the blackboard. The sheriff's attention spiked at the question, his eyes steady on the text. "What makes them different from the others? Garcia?"

"Here sir. And before you ask, I've got nothing. They've all got different backgrounds, the only thing they have in common is the age range, gender and being members of a Twilight fanclub."

Derek noticed muscles tensing in the sheriff's hands. He could as easily stop himself from profiling the man, as he could stop himself from breathing. It wasn't until both their eyes hit the list on the board that Derek realized what it was. The sheriff's last name was Miller, it was one of the names on the list of possible victims.

In any other case, Derek might be inclined to exclude him from the investigation because of this. But they lacked manpower as it were, and there were over 20 girls to watch out for. No reason to assume that Sharon Miller was any more at risk than any of the others.

"What about the rest of the list?" he asked Garcia, trying to bring his attention back to what mattered.

"Over half of them have an interest in Twilight. Fifteen of them are members of the same fan club. Several of the others have recently logged onto Twilight chat rooms and at least five of them are members of Twilight communities on various blogging sites. "

"What else have we got." Hotch was going through the files, hoping to make some sense of things.

"I talked to witnesses in the Stein case." Reid brought in. "Several of them saw a classic and rather distinct black car in the vicinity of the home. None of the neighbours own one like it.

"Would that be a black Chevy Impala?" Prentiss asked.

"Could be, why?"

"A witness at the Menendez and Tucker scene reported seeing a black Chevy Impala '67 around the area. The witness is into old cars, so I'm pretty sure he'd know the difference."

"Noriko Kim also mentioned spotting a black car following them a time or two. "

"Garcia!" Hotch's voice rang right through the connection.

"I'm on it sir!"

There was something tugging at the back of his mind, whenever someone mentioned that car. Something he should be remembering. This was one of those rare moments where he wished he had a memory like Reid's.

"Have your men watch out for it. It might be nothing but…"

The sheriff was already pressing numbers. "It could lead us to the bastard before we end up with another body."

Derek wanted to say something, to assure him they'd keep Sharon safe. But Miller was already busy, placing an APB on the car. His eyes met with Hotch's as they shared a quiet understanding. They'd have to keep an eye on the man.

* * *

***September 18th 2009 20:15***

* * *

Vinnie fought a dopy grin as he pulled out of Marissa. She'd finally agreed to see him that evening. And as he kissed her lips he looked down on her in wonder. It was always the shy ones. Afterwards she lay next to him and lit a cigarette and he took one as well, to fit in.

He coughed as soon as he inhaled. God, he was going to be sick. But he couldn't be, not now that Marissa was finally noticing him. He heard a sound outside and quickly got out of the bed and grabbed his pants.

Marissa stayed in bed and kept smoking. "Aren't you worried about your dad finding you?" he asked.

She shrugged. He grabbed his sweater and got ready to head downstairs. "I love you." He whispered. She pretended not to hear him, but he could see her smile as she turned on the TV.

He managed to enter the kitchen without saying a word. The reverend looked at him, when he went to the fridge, but barely even seemed to notice him. There was a look of utter bliss on his face.

"The angel came by again." The man whispered, reverence in his tone. "They asked for our help, to gather and to wait."

"Wait for what?"

"I don't know." The way the reverend said it, it didn't seem to matter. "But I'm sure whatever it is, it is important in the eyes of the Lord."

Vinnie finished the sandwich he was making and gave it to the reverend. The man had been kind enough to give him a job, a roof over his head and in return he'd been... consorting with the man's daughter. He closed his eyes in remorse. To do something like that to a holy man like the reverend.

But Marissa! What man could possibly be expected to resist that much temptation.

* * *

***September 22nd 2009 17:36***

* * *

Sam leaned back in his seat and rested his head on the support. He'd started off the trip trying to look over the agent's shoulder to the back of the small jet. There were a few seats spread across the cabin, rather than rows of seat like in a regular plane. He'd been forced to sit next to a window, with one agent next to him and another on the seat across from him. He kept trying to scout the cabin. But it wasn't easy to look over the agent in front of him. The guy was almost as tall as he was. He gave up on that after he got a glare from the feds cornering him in on the other side. At first sight the man had seemed like one of four clones, utter cliché feds, cheap dark suits and all. It was the look on his face that set him apart. Not blank as he'd thought at first, but stoic, inscrutable. Sam wasn't even sure how he should feel about being on a plane. The police had barely even questioned him. As soon as the feds arrived they'd cuffed him and put him on a plane to Pennsylvania. Oklahoma was all too happy to get rid of him. The only crime he'd committed while in the state was pretending to be someone he wasn't. He was pretty sure it would take them a while before they started connecting him and Dean to whatever credit card fraud Dean had undoubtedly committed the last time they'd gone through the state.

They hadn't made him change his clothes. The cops had frisked him and gone through his shirts and pants for lockpicks and weaponry and then left him to stew in a cell until the feds showed up. Three of them wore the blue FBI windbreakers. The other two just wore suits. Then the feds had frisked him a second time and managed to find some iron wire and a bracelet that the cops had missed. And still they let him keep his own outfit, sweater shirt and all. To Oklahoma and Pennsylvania he was simply a person of interest. The only state that really wanted to get its claws in him was Wisconsin and possibly Missouri. Of course he was considered 'a person of interest' in every single other state mostly because of his connection to Dean, but that wasn't the same thing. Not by a long shot.

He wondered what they'd do if they found out about Steve Wandell, or Madison, or that poor nurse he'd allowed Ruby to murder. As if it made any difference, whose hands had been on the knife.

His legs were killing him, and he was tired, bone tired, but he didn't dare to ask if he could lean back his chair. These airplane seats were made for dwarfs, not men. He was glad to see that the fed , who sat in front of him, was suffering from almost the same problem. He noticed the man's crutches, that were placed just far enough away that Sam couldn't reach them. The man groaned and Sam noticed the stiff way that the man placed his leg in the seat.

Sam wondered why someone with a bum leg like that was even on duty. They had to be pretty much convinced that the other four feds on the plane with them would be enough to keep him down if necessary. Well them, the shackles, the lack of space to move even an inch. He fought a yawn and wished he could just stretch his arms. He wondered what would happen if he let sleep overcome him here. With his face onscreen like that, how long would it take for Lucifer to find him for real, instead of this invasion of his dreams?

Last night it had been Nancy. Half her face had been skinned. He could see strips of flesh hanging down her face as well as the tendons and muscles which showed through the open wounds. She'd begged him why, asked him why they'd let her friends die. Why they hadn't just taken Ruby's suggestion, at least then her friends would have survived and her death would have been quick. Now instead, her dead had seemed to last forever and she'd been cursing God long before she was finally allowed to die.

One of the clones asked the guy with the crutches if he wanted to drink something. Crutches ordered something to drink and asked Sam if he wanted something as well. Sam had a vague notion that it was the second time the fed repeated his question. He asked for a glass of water. It was the first words they'd exchanged all through the trip.

"Why am I even here?" Sam finally asked. "What am I supposed to have done? I wasn't even in the state."

"Shut up Winchester." Clone one said, this one had light brown hair, the other two were respectively blond and bald . Sam decided to call him Tweety. Yes, Dean had been a bad influence on him all through childhood. The bald guy with glasses was fiddling with a pencil, while clone three, let's call him ... Mortimer, had just gone off to the back of the plane.

"I just want to know what I'm supposed to have done. You've got my phone; you know I haven't talked to Dean in weeks. He's not taking my calls and we're not travelling together." Not anymore, he added mentally. Not after all he'd done; all the suffering he'd caused. He just wanted to put down his head and sleep, just one hour. Pray your soul's in heaven before the devil finds you gone, put salt on the coffin, locks on the crypt, but what if heaven would never allow you in?

"So what happened?" wiry boy asked. And the man did look surprisingly young. Dean would grin if he saw him and tease Sam about the suits he'd always made them wear if he saw a guy like this who wore no more than a dress shirt and pants. Not that Dean wouldn't call the guy a bad example hair wise.

Sam looked away. Almost ashamed that he'd even brought it up in the first place. He figured if he said nothing they'd let it go, but junior fed kept watching him.

"I messed up." He finally answered.

"What did you do?" Sam took another look at the agent. They could actually look eye to eye and Sam was convinced that not much would change with that, even if they did both stand up. It was hard to notice though, with the way the kid sat slouched back as if trying to hide himself while reading some kind of a science journal. Physics wasn't really Sam's thing, but he knew enough to recognize the name of the journal.

"Would you believe me if I told you I started the apocalypse?" The fed didn't even blink. "I trusted someone I shouldn't have; let her talk me into … into drinking stuff I should have known not to. And before you know it, I couldn't stop."

"You got addicted." The way he said it, it had that same kind of tone that Lindsey had, that sense of knowing what it's like to face a demon in a bottle and what it's like to climb your way out of it.

"That's one way to call it."

"What's the other?" Crutches was still listening. In fact it seemed like he was almost restraining himself from talking about something or other.

"I broke the devil out of hell and betrayed my brother on the way there." The guy's lack of belief was almost a relief; it made it easier to talk about what he'd done, because he knew he wasn't going to be taken serious. So much easier to talk to someone who thought you were insane to begin with. There were no expectations to keep up to. "Dean could have forgiven me for the first, but… I chose a demon over him, and he can't forgive that. He can't trust me anymore. And he was right." Sam closed his eyes. "God, I used to pray every night before going to bed, I'd sit there, looking up at heaven, begging God for normality, and then just for life. For Dean and dad to be safe, for something, anything better than this. I would thank him for any small favours, and say praise in the morning, for all the good we'd meet. And somehow I thought there'd be someone, anyone listening." He closed his eyes in defeat. "But none of it matters. The angels hate me, my brother hates me and the only one that doesn't hate me is Lucifer. And I'll never say 'yes' to him. No matter how often he asks."

"Do you see Lucifer a lot?" The man sitting next to him asked. He seemed to be the one in charge.

"Every night for the past week." Sam rolled his eyes, too worn out to think of shutting up. "Ever since I spat out that demon blood Hank and his friends tried to get me to drink. Every single night, he's there, and all I want is for him to go down, so I can just… end it. Find redemption."

He drained his glass instead of mumbling a rite over it, to turn it into holy water like he'd originally planned. His mouth was parched. The agent was still looking at him. Sam let his head sink down and tried to sleep. Maybe this time the devil wouldn't find him.

"Pray to God your soul is gone, before the devil knows you're done." He repeated, so so tired. "Salt and burn, salt and burn."

A minute later Victor Henrickson sat beside him.


	4. Chapter 3

***September 17th 2009***

* * *

Emily quietly held her coffee as she waited for Derek and JJ to get to the diner. Business seemed up, with not a single empty table in the house. Waiters were hustling from one side of the place to the other and the cook yelled from the back at them to just give him a minute. She had barely managed to find one booth that was empty except for one man who was sitting behind a cup of coffee without touching it.

The man sat still. Frozen, his hand twitched a bit, as if he seemed unsure of where to leave it, but other than that he didn't move an inch out of place.

"Mind if I sit here?" She took the man's lack of a response as consent. "I didn't think they'd be so full up. But I guess they're having an overload with the press and us showing up.

The stranger tilted his head as if he had a problem understanding the words coming out of her mouth. His eyes pierced through her as if she was speaking a foreign language. Maybe she was, to him.

The guy was dressed in a grey trench coat over a worn and creased suit. His hair seemed in desperate need of a comb and his lips were chapped, even though he didn't even seem inclined to bite them.

"You don't like the coffee?" Emily asked before trying some of her own. She couldn't disagree. "You could always try some tea instead." Sometimes she hated being a caffeine addict.

"Thank you, but I do not require nourishment."

"So why are you here then?" It was almost as if she'd asked the man the answer to the reason for existence, until he finally stopped and answered.

"I was told it would attract less notice if I sat down and drank instead of waiting on the street."

Emily sniggered, "Well if you don't want to attract attention, it might help if you at least sipped your coffee every once and a while. "

She wondered if he suffered from a kind of autism, Asperger's maybe? He looked functional, but that didn't mean much. The man seemed to consider her words, before picking up his cup and taking a sip. He did it without blinking.

She kept quiet after that and ordered her food as soon as the waitress came close enough to hear it. He was still sitting in the exact same position he'd been in when she first came in.

"I'm guessing you're not used to eating out?"

Quiet guy didn't seem too sure of what to say to that. "I gain nourishment from the Lord."

"Yeah, faith can do that." He fell still again. It was unnerving. "So what are you doing here?"

He took her question a lot more serious than she'd intended it. "I am looking for God."

"Any luck?"

"None yet. Dean told me that if I truly believe my father is still alive, that I should hang on and keep faith that I will find him. "

"Yes…" Emily wasn't sure what to say after that, or what the connection was to finding God. A search for answers maybe? "Have you tried asking the police for help in finding your father?"

He probably had, but considering his mental state, she couldn't be sure of it.

"No I have not. Do you believe they would be able to help me?"

"Well it is part of our job." She said, smiling encouragingly.

"I shall seek their aid then when Dean does not have need of me." Then he looked up again. "I must go now, I have an appointment."

She tried not to look after him, but couldn't help a softly whispered. "I hope you find him."

* * *

***September 21st 2009 8:23***

* * *

Winchester sat slouched in his chair as far as the chains around his hands and feet would allow him. He was dressed in an orange overall and acted as if he didn't have a worry in the world. It was a good act. If Derek didn't have the experience profiling that he did, he might have even fallen for it.

Regardless of his pretence, Winchester seemed hyperaware of anything that happened in the room, up to the point where he'd looked up when the door of the observation booth opened, and one of the deputies joined Derek inside.

Prentiss followed Rossi into the interrogation room. The older agent was playing with a silver crucifix that he'd borrowed from one of the deputies. Winchester believed he was on a mission of God, to kill vampires, demons, monsters, or any of the other creeps and crawlies that he or his brother dreamed up. Playing up to his beliefs might gain them sympathy, some kind of connection. At the very least it would mark them as human.

Sharon Miller had been missing for thirty hours now. If they didn't find her soon, all they could hope for was to find her body. On top of that, Winchester had a partner. Someone who picked his victims for him, it was the way he worked. If it wasn't Sam, then whoever it was was still out there.

Rossi stood at the back, he didn't say a word. Derek knew it was intentional. He was trying to force Winchester into starting the conversation. Dean didn't seem to be falling for it.

"You should see the metal he had on him. I haven't seen that big a collection of lock-picks, box-cutters, and switchblades in years. "

Derek stayed quiet, ignoring the deputy, even though he knew the man exaggerated a bit. Or he just didn't have as much experience as he liked to think.

"Not to mention the knife."

"Knife? Anything special about it?"

"It was weird; there were all kinds of symbols on it. Like out of some satanic ritual."

Derek opened the file that lay on the table in front of him. There was a picture of the knife amongst the subject's personal items. The lab had found minimal traces of various blood types left on the knife

There wasn't near enough left to serve as credible evidence, but enough to make you realize the thing wasn't just for show.

"What about his car?"

"You mean aside of the arsenal in the trunk?" The deputy snorted. "You know, guns, knives, all kinds of stuff. A few fake credentials, most of them with his picture on it."

"Most of them?"

"Yeah." Deputy Stringer pulled two sets of FBI credentials out of the paper bag he was carrying. The first one was a man Derek recognized, Sam Winchester. The second…

"I've seen him before, yesterday..." Derek whispered. "He stood in the stairway when I was heading up to the Donnahue's apartment."

He pulled himself together, and took a second look at the picture. He wasn't sure if he imagined a glimpse of black in the deputy's eyes or not.

"Hotch needs to see this." Derek wondered if Hotch or Reid would have landed yet. They'd left for Pennsylvania an hour ago. He continued his attention on the interrogation, or attempt at one, going on inside. Winchester was making his typical smart ass remarks. He was answering questions with questions, making jokes, flirting with a completely unresponsive Prentiss. Derek huffed a bit at the cockiness that the guy was displaying. He grabbed the second picture and scanned it in before making a quick call.

"The office of Brilliant Omniscience awaits you." She sounded chipper as ever.

"Hey baby, please tell me you're wearing that hot red number with the lilac print." He finished the scan and transferred it to an email.

"Oh silly, I wouldn't want to blind the world, especially when you aren't even around to enjoy it."

"With your looks, they'd cherish that last glance for all eternity." He said with his smoothest voice. He loved talking to Garcia. It wasn't just the chance to flirt with someone he knew wouldn't take him seriously, but the smile he could almost feel appearing on her face every time he did.

"Flirt." She answered, without a hint of true accusation. "So what can I do for you my faithful minion?"

"Can't I just call baby girl?" He grinned back, even knowing she couldn't see it. "I'm sending through an image, I need a full ID on the guy. Name, history, any previous felonies…"

"I'm on it." He could hear her start typing through the phone. "He's as good as busted." She was probably biting her pencil by now. "Hmmm…"

"What?"

"He looks pretty good for a fiend."

"Careful hon, I'm sure Kevin wouldn't like that kind of talk." She snorted at that. He flashed her a grin she couldn't see. "You can't always recognize the bad guys on sight."

"Wouldn't it be easier if we could?"

He heard the sound of a bang, and looked back to the interrogation room. "I got to go Garcia, talk to you later."

"Oh you sweet talker you…" was the last thing he heard before he clicked off the phone and put it back in his pocket. His attention returned fully to the job at hand. Winchester was standing half up, or at least as far as his shackles would let him, which wasn't very far. Hotch was pretending to sooth Prentiss, as if she really needed someone to do that.

"Please sit down mister Winchester."

Winchester ignored him, his attention fully focused on Prentiss. "Touch Sammy and I'll skin you alive." He hissed before he finally sat back down again. Winchester knew procedure enough to know he wasn't getting away with this.

It was the first genuine response that Dean had given them since they got in so Emily went for it. "Is that why you skinned that girl in Milwaukee, Dean? Because she touched Sammy?"

'My brother has nothing to do with this."

Derek compared Winchester's behavior with that he'd seen on the surveillance from Baltimore. There was definitely a difference. In Baltimore Dean had been sure of himself, cocky, arrogant. There was little or none of that arrogance left and what cockiness there was, was an act.

He could almost feel the tension in the room as Dean took control of himself, refusing to let them get to him like this. Emily went in quickly, hoping to cut him off, before he slammed down his walls again.

"We're on separate vacations." The phrase sounded well rehearsed, but Derek could feel tinges of hurt at the edges of it.

"Is that what this is, Dean? Is it just a fun way to relax? Do you get your kicks murdering innocent little girls?"

That definitely got a wince. Winchester was definitely not unaffected by his actions. "And why? Because your baby brother had better places to be than hang out with a loser like you? Because little brother decided he didn't want to run with you anymore?!"

She was getting to him, and yet…

"You don't know…" The emotion behind it tore through Winchester like a ripple

"Sammy left you all alone, didn't he? So someone had to pay." She then threw the pictures on the table. "Children had to pay, just because the child you raised didn't want to be with you anymore!

That's when Derek knew they lost the chance. Dean wasn't in a corner anymore. She'd made a mistake, made some wrong assumption; because those walls were back in place, stronger than before

"They weren't children." And part of it sounded like Winchester was trying to convince himself of it, but he grew more certain of it with every word. Damn it. They'd had him, just for a brief moment. But now that moment was gone.

Rossi ordered Prentiss to leave. He followed right after her, leaving Dean behind with the pictures. They'd made sure there weren't any paperclips of course, but it was obvious that he wanted to see what Winchester would do with the chance to look at his victims. Winchester didn't touch them; he just looked at them and turned away. Something had happened to the man, Derek wondered what it was.

* * *

***September 18th 2009 19:15***

* * *

Her dad removed his gun belt and put his coat on the rack. Mike came running at him and jumped in his arms. He was four years old, what else could you expect? Steve was working on his homework, a report on the Tuskegee airmen. Sharon was holding her arms in an attempt to keep the shakes down. She hadn't fed since Susie had been killed. They were supposed to hide, stay inside, and pretend to be normal, but her stomach was eating her up from the inside out.

She bit in an apple, juice slithered down her lip. She trembled.

"Sharon, sweetie, are you all right?"

"It's nothing dad."

He didn't seem to believe her. She wasn't even sure how she knew; it rang through in his heartbeat, in his scent. He was scared. Scared to lose her, as scared as she was about whomever was killing her family.

"I'm not going to let you get hurt, Sharon. I promise, whatever happens, we'll get this guy."

She couldn't even admit that her sisters were gone, that her Maker had disappeared. "He got Danita." Danni was in her class, she was safe.

"But he won't get you." He held on tight, his large hands holding onto her frame and as her head rested next to his neck, all she could see was the vein throbbing underneath. She forcefully pulled herself away and nearly fell in exhaustion. She was hungry, hungry and tired and needy. Her body was growing colder with every passing second. She had to leave the room before it was too late. Dad called after her, but she wasn't listening.

She sank down in front of the door, keeping it shut as she held her legs in fear. She couldn't feed, it wasn't allowed, it wasn't....

Her mouth fell open, in fear as she realized, that for one moment, one instant, she hadn't even thought about right or wrong. That it had been about survival, her own survival, rather than protecting her family. There was something missing in her heart as she thought that word. Family was the others, family was the nest, Danita, Allison, Susie, ... her family was dead.

Her family was downstairs and she couldn't feed, shouldn't, wouldn't... because it was wrong, because it would pull the Hunter towards her.


	5. Chapter 4

***September 19th 2009 8:55***

* * *

Another day, another body. Anna Leighton, age 17. Dark brown hair, caramel eyes, African American. Another picture they had to add to the blackboard. The unsub wasn't going by alphabetical order. Reid said the names were random, there was no pattern that he could detect. They'd checked the locations on a map, but nothing came out of that either.

"Where's the Sheriff?" JJ came in carrying two coffees, one for herself and one she set down in front of Derek. He whispered a quick thanks. She yawned, she'd been busy all morning, talking to three of the local reverends. This was a town too small to have more than one Starbucks, yet there were at least three different Baptist churches. All three of them had insisted on giving their prayers for the investigation and to be seen talking to one of the agents.

"Don't know; he didn't come in today." Derek eyed the autopsy reports again. Still no results on the type of paralyzing agent that the unsub had been using. He tried to think through the various types of chemicals that could be used. So far the only common result the coroner had come up with, was that the bolts had been covered in blood. Dr. Rodriguez had been pretty sure the blood that the unsub used came from a dead body. She said the oxygen levels in the blood had disintegrated too far to belong to a living body.

"I wanted to ask him if he'd heard anything more about the black Chevy." She sat down, resting her feet for a moment. She'd been talking to the media all day and sometimes Derek wondered how she managed it.

"I asked deputy Stringer earlier and they have an APB on it. Nothing so far." He took another look at JJ and the rings under her eyes. "So how's Henry?"

"He's fine. My mom's looking after him. But… I miss him Derek. I know I can't bring him with me, but it's weird sleeping in a room, and knowing he isn't next door. I keep expecting to hear him breathing and waking up when I don't."

He held her hand for a moment. "It'll be fine JJ."

"I just keep thinking of Hotch and Jack, and how little he got to see his son, even before Foyet. And now… " She crossed her arms in front of her, her head was bowed. She shivered a bit, pushing a lock of hair back behind her ears. "It makes me wonder if I'm a bad mom."

Derek scoffed at the very notion. "JJ, you're a great mom! Henry is well taken care of. His dad's around and you know we'd be lost without you."

JJ smiled. "I'd better get ready for showtime. I've arranged a press conference this evening, and set up a helpline to ask the public about that Chevy. I just wish we had more to go on. Some kind of profile to look out for. People are going crazy, glancing over their shoulders, wondering if the murderer is standing right behind them at any given time. If we don't find him soon…"

"We will." Derek prayed he wasn't lying.

"It's weird, I've done this a hundred times before, but I've never worried so much, as I have since Henry was born."

"That's because it's personal now." Derek stated certain of his case. "It's harder to distance yourself, when you know what it feels like to be a parent."

"So says the guy who hasn't had a relationship that lasted longer than a few weeks."

"JJ, I'm just too picky for this world, the only women I'd ever want, are too smart to hook up with me in the first place." It got him a smile and a pat on the back before she left. A job well done as far as he was concerned.

* * *

***September 21st 2009 17:56***

* * *

Dean leaned back in his bunk, evening was approaching and his finger traced along the lines in the cement of the wall. He ignored the graffiti about who would fuck who as his mind kept flashing back to the last girl's eyes; to the look of her hand as it fell open, palm up. He remembered the others. There was the one with the dark brown eyes; she'd stared at him like he held the world away from her. He remembered her teeth, but more than that, he remembered those eyes. As he did he kept flashing between her eyes and those of the souls he tortured in the pit. His hand twitched, almost as if there was something missing. A knife maybe, or a scalpel, or…

The shadows around him looked like a fire, flames whispering at him. She was just a little girl, they'd all been. He'd never hated a creature more than he had the vampire that had turned those kids. The monster had twisted them; it had indulged them with fantasies of nice vampires, and pretend threat. Its seduction held just enough of a hint of menace to make it exciting, but not enough to be real. The kids never stood a chance.

And all there'd been left for him; was to clean up the wreckage, even if that had meant killing those children a second time around. Anything, before they got too much blood on their hands, or their double-edged teeth. There was no worse loss than innocence.

It was easier mocking the cops, holding them off, when part of you didn't agree with them. When they called you a monster and you knew they were wrong. It was so much easier killing vampires when they were big growly things that came at you in the dark. Or even better, the fun type, the temptress Dracula's bride type that you had to kill before they finished draining you. It was hard to believe that there used to be a time when even the idea of fighting vampires had been funny. He couldn't believe how innocent he'd once been.

It wasn't so much fun when you had to kill a kid who wore a Mickey Mouse nightshirt in her pink Barbie doll room, just barely inching her way towards womanhood, pigtails swinging along the path.

He played the game. He smiled at the pretty fed and pretended it all didn't matter. But then she'd got to him. He should have known better, but when she told him they had Sammy… The way she said that they were going to break Sammy, get him to tell them all about him, which Sam wouldn't. Of course he wouldn't. But she'd said it so matter of fact. As if it was no more than a matter of time. Two years ago, even the idea of Sam turning on him would have been as crazy as the idea of angels. Look what had happened. He was just waiting for Bigfoot riding in on a unicorn any day now.

What was he supposed to do? Sit tight here? He couldn't even call for Cas, because with the sigils on his ribs, Cas couldn't even fucking see or hear him unless he was standing in the room with him. They needed Cas, and he didn't have a clue where the friggin' angel had gone off to. He was supposed to keep an eye out for vampires. Dean chuckled, thinking he should have added cops to the list of things for Cas to look out for.

He'd tried to keep his head down when the cameras were near, and it seemed to have worked. That or the angels and their cronies didn't bother to watch TV. They were probably too busy standing on the street to look where they should have. Zachariah hadn't shown up yet, and Dean counted that as a win. He didn't even want to consider how much of that had been sheer luck. The cops thought they were going to put him on trial. On trial, right in the middle of the frigging apocalypse, with Lucifer breathing down their neck, with Zachariah just waiting for a chance to get his hooks in him.

If the angels found him, he'd probably end up looking back at his current cell as the highpoint of his week, month, year, rest of his life…. So he enjoyed it for as long as it lasted.

He heard footsteps coming closer and he looked up at the bars.

"Don't I get a phone call?!"

There was something wrong with the guy; he was dressed like a deputy, hat and all, but he didn't feel right and Dean got up. There was something with his neck, bruising. His eyes flashed black. "I should shoot you here and now Winchester." He actually snickered, it sounded almost girly. "Take away what little weapon the angels still think they've got."

"Meg." He could see it in the way the deputy moved, it had been in the real Meg's body, in the way Sam had moved when Meg had been inside of him. That same smugness.

"But see, our lord, he has a better plan. Sam is coming here, soon, and once he does, all we have to do is bring him home to Lucifer. And our rewards will be never ending."

"Stay the fuck away from Sammy, bitch, or I'll…"

"What? Yell at me from your cage? Try to kill me." She came close, her hands on the bars, tempting him with every wiggle. She was so close and he grabbed out. It wasn't until he had her that she turned back towards him and screamed in her victim's voice, it stopped mid scream. He jumped back, let go, it was too late, the trap was complete. Black smoke erupted out of the man's mouth. The man fell down. He hit the floor before the smoke was even gone. Dean stood there, staring at the cops as they came running in. It would be no use to tell them that he was innocent, so he just lifted his arms and backed up to the walls.

Dean knew he hadn't broken the man's neck. He'd barely even touched him. "It was a demon." He tried to laugh at the whole ridiculousness of it all. "I didn't kill him, he was already dead."

Two of the cops pulled their guns on him. "To the wall, now." As if he could reach through the bars and kill them as well. Harsher than needed, he could practically breathe their anger as one of the feds checked on the victim. He looked over his shoulder. "Damn bitch." They'd never let him see Sammy now, and who'd protect his little brother if he wasn't there to look after him? "I'll kill that bitch, if it's the last thing I do."

* * *

***September 18th 2009 19:35***

* * *

He'd never been as scared as he'd been this week. He was a good cop, he knew he was, but the recent murders were beyond anything he knew how to deal with. None of his years of experience had ever prepared him for this. He was used to dealing with traffic violations, an occasional theft. The worst case he'd ever dealt with was a domestic disturbance, when he had to arrest Reverend Torke for hitting his wife. He'd listened tightly to the provisional profile that the feds came up with, pissed off, and wondering what the hell they were wasting his time with this crap for.

He'd asked them what good where they, if they couldn't stop this bastard from murdering their children. Their team leader hadn't even flinched, even if the rest of them seemed bothered by his words. They should be.

According to them it was a man between 20 and 40 years old with a deep-seated belief in supernatural forces and a strong conviction of right and wrong. They'd admitted they couldn't put a race on the man, because his choice of victims was too varied. The man believed he was on a mission to fight evil, and that unlike the usual range of sociopaths, this guy would most likely be able to fit into normal society. The man saw himself as a hero and would likely even risk his life to save those he saw as innocents.

None of that would help one bit in finding out where the hell the bastard was hiding himself. He was letting down his people. Worse, he was letting down Sharon. He'd thought about sending her and the boys over to their grandmother, but the poor woman didn't need the stress in her life. What if the monster came after his Sharon, and he wasn't there to protect her?

_"We've seen this kind of MO before." Agent Morgan had said. "It happens on occasion. Men; usually they're men, who have something bad happening to them. Something they can't explain. They suffer a loss, so tragic that they lose sight of things. They lose respect for the law, for the belief that the world is just and right. And because they can't explain how something so horrible could happen to them, they start blaming their tragedies on evil, demons, monsters, ghosts. Because it's easier to accept that a demon killed your wife, than it would be to accept that she died because of an accident, or because of a mental defect." Morgan had seemed lost in memories._

_"There's an entire world out there of people who just can't accept reality, so they stock up on weapons and start a crusade against monsters. People like Gordon Walker, Daniel Elkins, John Winchester… They don't start off as bad men, but they lose sight of things. And if someone dies in their mission for revenge, then it's just collateral damage. It's something that happens. And they move on._"

Miller slowly walked up the stairs and knocked on the door, desperately needing to check up on his daughter. She didn't answer, but he could hear her behind the door, she was crying.

_"People like that, they don't look at the world like you and I do. They see monsters lurking behind every corner and sometimes they pull their own children along in their madness. They don't see kids playing make belief, they see vampires and then they slay those vampires before 'innocent' people can be hurt."_

Miller knocked on the door.

"Sharon, sweetie, please open the door." She didn't answer "Sharon, I need to know if you're alright."

_"That's why we have to stop them." Derek had continued. i"Because the world really does have monsters in them, but unfortunately, most of those are all too human."_

She didn't answer. He pushed the door, it was almost impossible to move. He wondered where she'd found a key, until suddenly the door gave way and he fell into the room. Sharon was curled up behind the bed. She was trembling, her hair and shirt were drenched in sweat. He ran up to her. She looked at him and said.

"Please daddy, please, I need…"

His heart froze. He knelt down next to her and took her pulse, it was barely beating.

"God, Sharon."

He went to pick her up. Her head leaned on his shoulder. Her skin was cold as ice.

"I'm hungry daddy. So hungry."

He looked at her eyes, there was something inside of them that made him want to back off. But he couldn't, this was his daughter, his little girl. What could there possibly be to be scared of?


	6. Chapter 5

***September 20th 2009 22:15***

* * *

Vinnie wasn't even sure what he was looking for. One moment he was on the dance floor with Marissa, the next she was pulling him along with her to the back of the coat check area. Vinnie had known the guy handling the coats for years and when he noticed them, he just gave Vinnie a wink and purposely looked away. Marissa didn't seem to care, she pushed Vinnie against the wall and he leaned into her.

Then she pulled back, he held his hands in front of his pants, too embarrassed to head out. She threw him a grey trenchcoat and left him behind. Mark just smirked at them both and Vinnie knew he was going to have to pay for this one.

He hesitated and prayed God for forgiveness before following her out. He noticed her in the middle of the crowd. She was gorgeous. Her long blond hair hung in loose ringlets along her face and her new white dress showed off her figure, far more than he knew her father would appreciate.

She was dancing with some guy. Vinnie didn't know his name, but he looked creepy. Like some kind of freak, dressed in black jeans and a low-cut shirt, with chains holding up his pants instead of a belt. Vinnie couldn't believe the creep was actually wearing eyeliner, but he was sure he saw it, when the guy looked over his Raybans.

Sunglasses, inside? How lame did you have to be?

Yet Marissa seemed to be eating it up, she was dancing with him, almost as if she knew him. He leaned up to her and whispered something in her ear. She smiled and answered back. Vinnie couldn't quite hear what she was saying.

They went up to the bar and she let him buy her a drink. Vinnie would have gone up and said something, but he stood there transfixed as she dipped a finger into her glass and placed a soft kiss on her fingertip, sucking up the soft red drops of liquid.

The stranger grabbed her hand and pulled her towards the exit, it was almost as if the crowd poured open before them.

He could hear the happy sound of her laughter even amidst the noise, his heartbeat thumped wildly along with the beat of the music. His hands formed fists and he pushed them in his pockets. He nearly cut himself when he realized there was something in the lining.

It was a knife, a butcher's knife. What were the odds that of all the coats in the room, Marissa had picked one that belonged to a psycho? He rushed out, desperate to find Marissa.

He found her in the alley beside the bar. The weirdo had pushed her against a wall. She didn't protest, no she gave in to him. She enjoyed it. The stranger kissed her. She opened her mouth. Her lips looked ruby red. Freak guy pushed her further. He grabbed her wrists and pushed them to the wall. Vinnie screamed, but neither of them seemed to hear him. The weirdo held her there as his tongue traced a path along the crook of her shoulder up to her neck. She wasn't even looking at him, her head pulled back, as she sighed under his touches. His teeth slipped into place and he broke skin. He sputtered back, almost instantly, he spat out the blood.

She started laughing. "What? Am I too rich for your tastes? Bad for your diet?" She'd lost what little bit of shyness she had left. Her face was twisted in a smirk and her eyes had gone black. Vinnie just stared at her, he wasn't sure if he'd really seen it. The next moment, she looked back at him, with normal eyes.

"What are you?" the weirdo sputtered out, still trying to get rid of the last of the blood inside of him. Vinnie stared in disbelief as small frail Marissa who could barely open of jar of pickles pinned the larger man to the wall and held him there.

"Something scarier than a miserable little rat like you could ever hope to be."

"Marissa?"

"Help me, Vinnie. He was going to kill me. He's a vampire." Vinnie just stood there.

"But…"

"Please Vinnie, you said you loved me. Kill him for me, please. Before he kills me."

The freak tried to protest, she looked at him as if he were her hero.

"Please Vinnie, make it hurt."

Vinnie pulled out the knife and cut. Marissa told him to run, and she screamed.

* * *

***September 19th 2009 13:35***

* * *

Finally a lead! Derek followed Hotch into the motel. He made sure to take a good look at the lobby. The place was stuffed to the hull with old papers, magazines and books in every nook and cranny all around the edges of the room and stairs. You could barely see what the wallpaper looked like because of all the faerie posters and shelves filled with angel figurines covering it.

There was a seventies model TV attached to a pole over the desk. It displayed some old black and white horror movie, while the teenager staffing the counter was munching on a bag of salsa chips.

A quick round of questioning led them directly to a room in the back. The black Chevy wasn't there now, but the clerk said it belonged to a guy in room 205. Some pretty boy, name on his card said Billy Corgan. The name sounded familiar, Derek just wasn't sure where from.

According to the clerk the guy had arrived on his own and had asked for a single room with a King. The boy hadn't paid much attention to him, except that when he went to look at the air conditioner in one of the rooms next to it, he heard the guy talking to someone. The walls weren't quite thin enough to hear what they'd been talking about, but he'd seen the first guy holding a gun before Corgan got the curtains shut.

They had a search warrant, and the clerk practically fell over himself in his eagerness to help. The smell of pot in the lobby didn't hurt. Derek grinned as he noticed the kid spraying a bit of Febreeze while he'd looked away for a second.

"Does this have to do with those murdered girls? Really? Wow, think he's…" Derek ignored him as he entered the room. The first thing he noticed was the disturbed line of white powder on the floor in front of the door. There was another line of salt to be found on the window ledge. He knelt down and picked some up. Salt, rock salt to be precise.

Derek noticed a set of carvings in the door post, he wasn't sure what they were supposed to mean. He pointed them out to Hotch who'd stepped further into the room. It was a mess. There were papers and some news articles spread out on the bed. The thing that pulled most of their attention was the wall. It was covered in pictures, yearbook pictures. Some had been crossed out with a red marker. They were all pictures of the victims. Three more were circled with a blue marker He could see that the crossed out ones had had the blue edge.

"Call the station, get someone to identify these girls and put police protection on them. Now."

Derek had his phone out already and was making the call before Hotch even finished talking.

Hotch opened the bathroom. He stood in the door opening for a second before he motioned at Derek to join him. It didn't take him long to notice the shirt in the sink. Someone had been trying to wash the blood out with a long soak.

"He's… he's not going to come back here, is he?" Derek almost jumped when he heard the boy's voice.

"I told you to stay outside!"

The kid flinched.

"I know, I just… But…"

Derek glared at him and the kid got the hell out of the room. "And don't touch anything. This room's a crime scene."

"Oh man, my mom's gonna kill me."

Derek ignored the kid after that. The forensic unit would be here soon. Derek grabbed a set of latex gloves before he accidentally touched anything. He tried to see what else there was to find.

There was a paper with the same set of names they'd found themselves. Most of them had been crossed out. The unsub had written something on the side with the same red marker he'd used to pin down what lives he'd taken out: "Quarantine."

Four other names had been handwritten on the print out. Simon Durgiss, Clarissa Burns, Donna Martin and Stan Curtis. They needed to be found. Derek prayed they were still alive.

There was also a note with an address; they'd need to check it out, right after they got the kid talking to a sketch artist.

* * *

***September 22nd 2009 19:40***

* * *

Reid put his hand on Winchester's shoulder. It was a quiet attempt to wake the man up before they landed. He could hear him mutter something. "No, never…" Sam woke up with a shock on his face, it quickly turned into a relieved sigh.

"Lucifer again?"

Winchester was about his age; slouched in his seat, he looked even younger. Reid had been trying to make an assessment of the man since they first caught sight of him in Oklahoma. Most of all, Sam Winchester was exhausted. If all his dreams lately were nightmares, it wasn't a surprise.

"He showed up as Henrickson." Winchester seemed sad at the mention of the name. "But we dealt with his ghost last year. So I knew right away it wasn't really him."

Victor Henrickson had been the lead agent on the first Winchester case. He'd died in a gas explosion in Monument, Colorado, less than an hour after sending in a report about the Winchesters' death in a helicopter crash.

"He only died, because Lilith was after us." Lilith, the first wife of Adam in Jewish lore, but also the name of a Babylonian storm demon associated with wind. She was thought to be a bearer of disease, illness and death and was one of the Lilitu. Many scholars place the origin of the phonetic name 'Lilith' as somewhere around 700 BC despite post-dating even to the time of Moses. Lilith appears as a night demon in Jewish lore and a screech owl in the King James version of the Bible. And then Reid pulled himself back to what Sam Winchester was actually saying.

"He shouldn't have died, he was a good man. Dean liked him."

Henrickson had dogged the Winchesters relentlessly for over a year. Reid wondered what part of that could possibly have made the elder Winchester like the agent. Maybe the challenge had excited him, to have a worthy adversary that paid that much attention to him, might have stroked his ego. The Baltimore tape, showed he definitely had the arrogance related to a narcissist; the same kind of arrogance based on a deep seated insecurity, often caused by a distant or absent parent.

Sam bowed his head and didn't move while Hotch attached his seatbelt. Reid quickly closed his own as well. "You're wrong about Dean. " Sam said, as he raised his hand, his shackles rang a bit as they touched the chair. "Henrickson realized that. It's why he let us go. Once he saw the truth."

'Let us go', as in, allowed them to escape? There were theories amongst the agents in the bureau, that the Winchesters were vigilantes. Many of their appearances coincided with weird happenings in an area. This case had only proved to that theory, especially in the way that the MO of the murders pretty much contradicted every part of the MO in the St Louis murders.

"And what is the truth?"

"That Dean's a hero." That would explain Henrickson allowing them to walk. Henrickson knew the case even better than Reid did. It was easy to fall for that small moral absolute of allowing these men to kill monsters. When you forgot for a second, what the Winchesters defined as monsters didn't always correlate with a common conception of the word monster.

Both Winchester brothers had been brainwashed from an early age to see their own brand of justice as superior to the police. They investigated strange occurrences and were taught to ignore the regular non-supernatural explanation for what was happening, instead to look for the supernatural. They were taught not to see man's capability of evil, but to see monsters and demons in place of mental illness and the breakdown of social and individual values. This sometimes led to the execution of actual threats to society and the people in it, which only confirmed their beliefs in themselves as heroes. They ignored the times when they were wrong and their so-called monster simply had the misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"And what about you?"

"Me?" Sam chuckled, it sounded halfhearted, broken. "I'm the monster Dean carries with him. The one that he can't kill, because no matter what I do or become, all he sees is his little brother."

The addiction, the need for 'demon blood', which probably pulled the younger Winchester down in a spiral of self-destruction and self-hatred. Sam Winchester had done something that had pinged his older brother's belief in monsters, something that if Sam had been any other person, would have probably resulted in the older Winchester killing him.

Whatever had happened between them had been bad enough that when Winchester was triggered by something that happened in this area; it led to him killing eight teenagers in a matter of little over a week. They needed to find out what Sam had done, what the stressor was, if they wanted to find the trigger in the current area.

There was only one problem. With the Winchesters, that 'something' could be anything, ranging from a series of mysterious disappearances, unexplained illnesses or deaths, to freak storms or cattle mutilation.


	7. Chapter 6

***September 19th 2009 23:56***

**

* * *

**

Most of all, Sharon remembered the chains. She remembered how they'd stung her wrists. She remembered drinking the wine. It had been all right, because the teacher had said it was. Just one glass, and it wasn't like European kids never drank alcohol. They would spend the rest of the evening talking books over the fire.

iTwilight night, signups for it had been up since the first day of camp. Most of the others would rather spend a night dancing, but Sharon had signed up for camp because of the books and the reading, not to meet boys, despite her dad's jokes on the matter. Danita had signed up because she missed George. They'd asked Marissa, but her dad didn't like her reading 'those vampire books'. And the others… They'd all just looked forward to a night around the campfire, sharing reading aloud and just plain being together. Susie had been the first to fall asleep. Ms Burns had tucked her in her sleeping bag and Sharon had fought the urge to yawn.

When they woke up, she'd felt the chains pulling on her wrists, and her gut had felt like it was killing her from the inside out. It had hurt so much. Sharon just wanted it to end. She'd struggled against her chains, but nothing helped. Then Simon walked in. Simon with his nice brown bangs that hung in front of his eyes. Simon, the one with the biceps that all the girls had loved to watch as he cleaned the car.

"Help me." She'd begged him.

He'd looked around, desperate to find keys, a boltcutter. She could hear his breathing speed up and her attention was pulled in by the way his heartbeat raged as he came closer. She tried to warn him when a shadow came up behind him and hit him on the head. The man, bald, white and way too tall leaned over him, and pulled up Simon's head. He brushed his fingers along the younger man's face before he picked up a knife and cut into his wrist. Simon was still unconscious when the man pushed his bleeding wrist in the teen's mouth. Simon almost gagged, before his mouth started swallowing the dark fluid.

Sharon cried, she didn't realize why, but her eyes kept following the trail of blood until it ended. She needed, needed…/i

She needed the chains; they were the only thing that could keep her from breaking now. They were the only thing that would keep Dad and the boys safe from her. She tore open the window of the warehouse. She crept down the hall, her ears open for any sound. She needed it, needed it so much. She burst through the doors of the main room. It was too quiet. The doors of the freezer stood open. She stared in, the girls were gone, of course they were gone. A rat came scurrying past her. It was too much, soon she was on the floor, grabbing for it. It ran and kept trying to get away, but she was faster. It's blood trickled past her chin.

She needed, needed more, but she couldn't get more.  
"I'm sorry daddy. So sorry."

The chains felt even colder than her skin. Sharon clanked one around her wrist, she wondered if it would hurt to starve. Would she still be wholly alive when they found her? Would they? Within the month, within the year? One day the kids would return to the warehouse. They'd realize that there was no one using the place anymore and flock into it with boomboxes and booze. It's the way it had always been. One group grew out of it, another settled in. They'd find her stuck here, skin over bones. She wondered if they'd come close enough to let her feed.

She quickly locked the second cuff and then she waited, losing herself in the dark. She lay down in a huddle, barely even missing the heat.

"I knew at least one of you would come back here." Sharon's mouth fell open in shock, her tongue bracing itself behind double teeth.

* * *

***September 21st 2009 18:14***

* * *

"So why did you kill Deputy Stringer, Dean?"

Winchester closed his eyes and ignored them. His fingers tapped a brief staccato. All Emily could think of was the look of Stringer's body. Purple bruises on his throat, strangled, his neck broken with bare hands; by the hands currently tapping on the table in front of her.

"We talked to the hospital. They said a man fitting your description, brought in two girls, runaways. They'd been missing for a week or so." In fact, the nurse had said that a man fitting Winchester's description had burst into the small emergency room. He'd been carrying one girl, while a second one held on to his shoulder just to keep herself from collapsing. All three of them had been covered in blood and the man had been bleeding from a wound on his forehead.

He'd refused treatment for his own injury until they took care of the two girls. He hadn't left until he was sure that both teens were taken care of.

"How are they?" it was the first thing he said since he'd been returned to the interview room.

Emily stood at the back, letting Hotch take the lead. "Better." Rossi's face was calm, as if he was trying to decide on something. Emily shared a glance with him before she continued. "The doctors said they'd lost a lot of blood, and that they would have died if you hadn't got there when you did." The girls had been bandaged, their wounds taken care of on a field medic level. But they still would have died if he'd just left them for an ambulance.

She was sure she didn't imagine the relief in his eyes. It made her wonder. He'd killed eight children, and had done so without hesitation as far as they could see. Yet he'd been worried about two others whose lives he'd saved.

It made no logical sense, unless… unless like him you didn't see the first group as human anymore.

"So what's the difference Dean? We know you came to Garber for a reason. Where did you hear about those girls' disappearances?"

Dean seemed surprised.

"We know you hunt 'monsters'." Rossi made it sound sincere, without the flinch of doubt in the word that Emily knew she herself wouldn't have been able to keep out. "What monsters were you hunting here, what case were you working on?"

"We know about the warehouse. It was empty."

Dean rolled his eyes. "Of course it was." He huffed at the very idea that they'd even expected to find anything still there. He stayed silent for a moment.

"I read an article about some hikers going missing near the camp. Camp Dowry." He repeated the word as if to make sure they were heading in the right direction. "By the time I got there, they still hadn't found them. A friend of mine helped me look. They were thrown in a well. If … my friend hadn't helped me, they wouldn't have found their bodies until someone dragged out that pit. It could have taken years."

"Did you call the police?"

"I made an anonymous call." His fingers started tapping a song, it sounded familiar. "They died of exsanguination. Someone drained them of their blood over the period of at least a week. From the looks of it, it would have lasted longer if someone hadn't cut their throats at the end. The coroner thought a bunch of animals did it, you know, without ever shredding their clothes or ruining their faces."

"And you're sure of that."

"I didn't do it," he suddenly insisted, "If that's what you're thinking. It's what you guys like to do, isn't it, make things nice and tidy?"

"We just want to find the truth."

Winchester huffed at the very idea."You can't handle the truth."

"Someone, something killed those hikers; the same person who kidnapped those girls, wasn't it?" Rossi moved in on that.

"I killed the vampire who set them up to die. He just wanted to bring his girls a snack." Dean sounded disgusted by it. "Tried to give me that whole, 'we deserve to live too' crap, same kind that Luther was spouting before dad shot him with the Colt." That connected the eldest Winchester with at least one solid case. "If they really just wanted to live, he could have lived off animals, cattle mutilation, anything. But most of them never even try."

"Would you have let them?" Emily asked. "Let them go if they lived off animals?"

Winchester shrugged. "Why not, we hunt monsters that kill people, not freaks that just try and live their lives. We let Lenore go, her and her group." Emily and David shared a look.

"Is that why you don't hunt your brother?"

Winchester groaned. He looked like he wanted to slam his head on the table. "I don't know why I even bother." He sagged down in his seat. "You don't believe me whatever I say. Instead of locking up the good guys, you should take a good look at those bodies I left behind." He looked up at her, his eyes pierced into hers. "Check their skulls. I'm not lying, Agent Prentiss. I'm not delusional, or screwed up in the head and my dad didn't brainwash me… or touch me improperly." He seemed disgusted at the very idea. It seems someone had told Winchester at least some of the theories about him and his brother and he wasn't happy with it. "Those kids weren't human. It wasn't their fault. They were made to drink something and they couldn't stop themselves. But they've killed people and they would have kept on killing until someone came in and stopped them. So I did. They're better off this way."

"Better off dead?"

"At least now they're at peace."

* * *

***September 21st 18:15***

* * *

Vinnie kept expecting the reverend to say something to him. He'd been washing his hands all morning. Yet no one had mentioned a word. He'd pushed the trench coat and the knife into a garbage bag and had stuffed them at the bottom of the container.

Marissa wouldn't even look at him. She'd gone over to the police station and told them about … about what had happened. Vinnie had offered to go along, to confess. He'd only been trying to protect her after all. She called him silly. She'd looked into his eyes, patted him on the nose and told him he was so cute, being all knight on a white horse, coming to her rescue. Then she kissed him and waved goodbye.

"Satan is coming here. His Vessel, foul with the stench of unrighteousness will burn our ground with his unholy touch. But do not fear."

He'd stayed here with the reverend.

"Our time will be soon." The man said. "The time when we will be able to serve the Lord our God and live or die in his name. Amen."

A loud echo of 'Amen' rang through the room before everyone bit into their food. Vinnie kept wondering when the reverend would ask him what he'd done with his daughter. About the stains on Marissa's bed sheets. About the look in her eyes whenever they shared a room.

But the reverend was too deep in religious ecstasy to notice.

********

*September 22nd 17:45*

Most of the cops were getting restless, waiting for the 'lecture'. It was easy to see that most didn't get why they were here. The bad guy was busted, his partner was coming in, and they felt they should be on the street trying to find the missing girl, instead of sitting here, wasting their time.

Derek knew the feeling. But it wasn't over. Not yet.

JJ was setting up the board. She looked oddly like the eager teacher's assistant setting up class. Derek left her to it, while he moved next to Rossi.

"What did the Sherriff say?"

"None of Sharon's friends heard from her, and none of her stuff is gone. His officers went over the scene with a fine-tooth comb. Nothing."

"He said she was sick."

"She could be. It's probably what scared her enough to run away."

"Miller won't like that."

Rossi nodded before heading to the front of the room.

"This is our primary suspect. His name is Dean Winchester, he's thirty years old, born in Lawrence, Kansas and has one younger brother Samuel Winchester who is four years his junior."

The cops sat still, but Derek could feel their impatience from the back of the room.

"When Winchester was four years old, there was a accident, a fire, the boy's mother, Mary Winchester died. After this, the father, John Winchester, a retired marine and Vietnam veteran, went off the grid and took his two boys on the road with him."

Emily continued. "It's assumed, though not confirmed, since Winchester never got psychological counseling after his wife died; that John Winchester had a psychotic break of some sorts. Possibly related to PTSD from his time in Vietnam. He started believing that the world was filled with monsters, demons, ghosts, and every other kind of creepy crawly you can imagine. It could have ended there, but unfortunately for us, with Winchester's training, it didn't."

Rossi picked it up again. "He's been linked to at least ten separate murder cases, though no connection was ever proven. It's assumed that he raised his sons as Marines from an early age and trained them to fight monsters. Samuel tried to get away at age eighteen, when he got a full scholarship for Stanford. He stayed away from the family business for four years, until his girlfriend Jessica Moore was murdered. Moore died, apparently in the exact same way that Mary Winchester had died twenty two years earlier on the exact same day."

Only one or two heads perked up.

"The reason that we don't assume the case to be over is because of the discrepancies in the cases connected to Winchester. At first it was assumed that Winchester simply varied his MO, but a closer look, both at the crimes involved and the times that the Winchesters arrived or left an area proved this to be impossible. "

This is when Derek came up, handing out a bunch of folders to the cops in the room.

"We have come to believe that the Winchester case follows the vigilante model."

"What?" One of the cops was halfway out of his chair before he realized everyone had turned to him. He sat down, sort of embarrassed.

"The Winchester brothers tend to arrive in an area linked to mysterious deaths, disappearances, cattle mutilations, and so on. They spend some time forcing themselves into the investigation, interviewing witnesses while pretending to be police officers, rangers, federal agents or whatever other role they feel like playing. Then when they leave the area, the murders, disappearances and so on stop. " Emily grew quiet as the image on the diorama froze on the image of Dean Winchester in Baltimore.

"So what? They're some kind of comic book heroes?" The same cop, just as disbelieving as the first time around.

Derek scoffed at the idea. "This isn't the Punisher and friends. These are two highly messed up young men who are observant, organized and extremely dangerous. Dean Winchester believes in monsters. Both Dean and Sam look for magical solutions for the crimes they are faced with. In some cases they find the actual murderer and kill him. There is no chance for trial or further investigation. They are arrogant to a point and believe they are better suited to stop crimes than the official law forces. "

He fell still and let Rossi take over again. "Not all the people they kill are guilty. Half of them can in no provable way be connected to any crime, not unless you count some superstition as a reason. In some cases, it can be as simple as flinching a bit too hard at hearing the wrong word, standing under the wrong light."

He remembered the footage from a police recorder. It had been found after a thorough investigation of a mass delusion in New Harmony, an investigation that was still ongoing. The common presumption was that someone had been spreading some kind of hallucinogenic that led to violence and often ended in amnesia. The tape came from a police car that had been found just out of town. It showed an officer getting out of his car and heading up to a black Chevy Impala. There was no sound, but Derek had felt the air freeze around him as he watched Winchester get of the car, simply snap and slice the cop without a second thought. They'd found the officer's body in the trunk of his car.

"These men need to be brought in, they need to be put on trial and probably be placed in a closed mental institute." He halted at that point, trying to put emphasis on his words. Then he continued. "But whatever else we may think of him, Winchester wouldn't have come to this area, unless something triggered him. Something made him believe that there were vampires in the area. A rumor about a bunch of kids reading books about sparkly faced bloodsuckers would not have done the trick."

"So what, we're gonna take those freaks delusions seriously?"

"No, but we have to keep in mind that Winchester isn't a traditional psychopath." Morgan flipped the blackboard. "Little over a month ago, three hikers disappeared near the area of Camp Dowry. Two weeks ago we got an anonymous phone call leading the authorities to their bodies. All three had been drained of their blood and had their throats ripped out."

That's when Emily spoke up: "A week ago, two girls were brought into the emergency room. Both suffered from hypervalemie." Yep, she'd definitely lost them with that one. "That means they had lost a great deal of blood. They also showed signs they'd been kept imprisoned for a period of time." She let that sink in for a moment. "They were brought in by a man that fit Dean Winchester's description."

Derek took a breath. "Winchester sees himself as a hero, he believes he is saving lives. He can be charming and very convincing. He easily connects with children and makes them feel safe around them. But most of all, he has a new partner who joined his delusions."

"What we need to do, is find the persons responsible for the original murders and find Winchester's partner." JJ moved the image to that of a man with messed up hair and a crooked tie who looked into the camera as if not quite sure what the thing was for. "Before he finishes up Winchester's murder spree and before the original murderer moves on and starts killing other people to fill his or her own quota."

"Winchester's partner, Jimmy Novak, is in his early thirties and seems to be suffering from severe hallucinations and delusions, both of which are symptoms of classic schizophrenia. He first disappeared over a year ago, leaving behind his wife and child. When interrogated by the police, his wife mentioned that he'd been hearing and seeing an angel. The angel told him he was 'chosen'. Such delusions are common enough and easily treatable with medication, if the patient is willing to take them. Unfortunately Novak refused to take medication. He disappeared a few days later."

"That is incorrect." Derek turned around, realizing the man whose picture was in front of them was standing in the room with them. Over a dozen officers seemed ready to shoot at him, yet for some reason, Novak didn't move an inch.


	8. Chapter 7

***September 22nd 20:45***

* * *

Sam wasn't even sure what he was doing as he drew a devil's trap on his thigh while they waited for the car to arrive. Something was off, he just wished he knew what it was. There was a feeling in the air, tension that couldn't be explained by being surrounded by feds, or the feds impatience because their transport still hadn't shown up. The pilots and the manager of the airfield had left half an hour ago, leaving them behind in the dark. It hadn't been raining when they left.

The agents were standing around them, the guy with crutches that they called Doctor Reid had stayed at his side the entire time. He knew he wouldn't do it, but he wondered how much it'd take to grab the man and threaten to snap his neck in order to make his escape. He wondered if they'd believe he'd do it if he went for it.

Considering that all of them had their hands near their guns, he didn't have too many doubts about it. The other one, Reid called him Hotch, he was the one to watch out for. Sam was sure he had at least two guns on him.

It was cold for Pennsylvania. Rainy too. Sam had had to struggle through the mud to get to shelter. He heard one of the clones curse his slowness, but what did the man expect from him, with the leg shackles holding him back as they did. Their leader kept an eye on him and the younger agent, making sure that the man's crutches didn't slip in one of the puddles. By the time they finally got under a shelter, a rusty old porch, and what was left of an old abandoned diner, he was drenched. They all were. It only worsened everyone's mood.

He looked up, and stared at the metal plating above his head while his foot rubbed a track through the mud surrounding them. He could hear the rain drumming on the roof and as he closed his eyes, he remembered what the rain had sounded like on the roof of the Impala, with Dean sitting next to him, drumming a Zeppelin solo on the dashboard.

"So why are you going through the effort of bringing me all the way over here?" He tried a second time, hoping beyond hope that he'd have more luck now. "Wouldn't it have been easier for you guys to just question me back in Oklahoma?"

"Your brother isn't cooperating."

What else was new? "So what? You think he's suddenly going to talk about his feelings when he sees me?" He scoffed at the very idea.

"He's angry that you left him."

Sam rolled his eyes. "We both agreed on that. We needed the time apart. He's the one who wants to make it permanent."

"Is he?"

Sam rolled his eyes. "I told you, he doesn't trust me."

"Because of your addiction?"

"Dean thinks that if I see demon blood, that I'm going to fall off the wagon. And I'm not sure if he's wrong."

"When you say demon blood, what do you mean?" The older guy asked him.

Reid stood back a bit, letting his superior take the lead. Sam had pretended to be FBI often enough to know how it worked.

"Blood," he stopped a moment, clearly enunciating the words as if talking to an idiot. "From a demon. As in from a person possessed by a demon."

"And how did this addiction begin?"

Sam could feel himself start to blush. "She said… it was supposed to be a boost, make my powers work better. All I needed to do was drink some of her blood and it'd make me stronger. She'd cut herself, and then I'd lick it from her wrist, or leg or…And then the more I drank, the more I needed it, needed what she could give me. I tried to stop, but then my powers would fade again, and I'd end up calling her, begging her for more."

"Who was she?"

"Ruby. Her name was Ruby." He flashed back to the demon and the way she had looked at him, right before they killed her. She'd seemed so pleased with herself, with the way she'd fooled him. It was as if she expected him to be happy for her, to still be with her afterwards. "While Dean was dead, she, she saved me from other demons and she'd be there for me. I knew she was a demon. I knew I shouldn't trust her. But Dean was in hell," Dean was being tortured, every second of every day and he'd been… alone. "and I just… I was so angry. I wanted to kill Lilith and Ruby seemed to understand. She was the only one who did." He broke off. "She said I needed to train my powers. And at first it was good." His voice trailed off. "It didn't work right away. At first some people we tried to save died. But then it started working and I could get the demon out of someone and save his or her life. All I had to do was focus. It felt so good, like I was doing something right."

The agent looked at him as if he was wondering what to say, what the right words were.

"We traveled together for months, before the angels brought Dean back to life." He could still feel his amazement at the very idea of something good finally happening to either of them and it showed in his tone. "He was dead for four months. Dead and buried. I buried my own brother, because I kept thinking there'd have to be some way to save him. Some way to get him out of hell. And then four months later, after everything I tried to do to save him, failed. After every deal I offered was refused, after…And he's standing there in front of the door, looking at me as if he was just out for a beer run." Sam's heart broke, just remembering.

"But he looked… he looked so small. It took him months to tell me what had happened to him in the pit. What they did to him."

"What did they do?"

"They tortured him. They tortured him for thirty years, on end. No rescue, no salvation, no respite." Endless pain while Sam had been fucking Ruby. "And every night, at the end of it, they'd give him an offer. Tell him that all he had to do to make it end was to get off the rack and start torturing others. He held off for thirty years."

"Thirty years?"

"Time goes different in hell. Thirty years down under, three months up here, it's the same thing." Sam was surprised at how much he was telling the feds, but at the same time it felt good to unburden himself, let the anger, fear, frustration out .... someone to just listen to him without necessarily judging him. Someone who didn't know just how bad what he'd done really was. "It took another ten years before Cas got him out. And Dean, he blames himself for every single second of those ten years. As if any of it were his own fault. He said no for thirty years, but all he cares about is the one time he said 'yes'. And then the angels wonder why Dean won't say 'yes' to Michael. You'd think they'd know better. But the only one of the lot of them that isn't a total dick is Cas."

Sam sighed. "Dean would barely even talk to me about it." No chick flick moments. "Ruby, she understood how it frustrated me. The angels would threaten me for using my powers, they'd say I'd be damned for using them. But God, I wanted to be useful, I wanted to be powerful enough to take down Lilith and make her pay for what they did to Dean. For killing him."

"Even after he was back?" The fed seemed oddly stoic, undisturbed by anything; as if he heard about these kind of things every day. Sam laughed a bit. In this guy's line of work, he probably did.

"Especially after he got back." Sam chuckled as if laughing at something only he understood, but the smile wasn't real. "Dean didn't understand it either. And then he found out about the demon blood. I disgusted him."

"He doesn't even know about the nurse." That's when he remembered who he was talking to. This wasn't Lucifer asking him questions. This wasn't a dream with no consequences. This was reality and two federal agents who'd use his every word to put him in jail forever. Telling them about her, god, he could barely even think of her name, would be the last nail in locking the door of his cell for all eternity.

* * *

***September 22nd 17:55***

* * *

Rossi calmly put his gun back in his holster and ordered the others to do the same. He could be wrong, but from the way the man looked into the barrels of a dozen guns, he was convinced the man would let them shoot him before surrendering. It's almost as if he didn't see them as a threat.

"Mister Novak. I'm SSA David Rossi. Do you understand what's going on here?"

"I am not Jimmy Novak."

The other cops reluctantly lowered their guns, but none of them holstered their weapons.

"Then who are you?" Rossi tried to calm things down before it got even more out of control.

Novak tilted his head and looked at him with an intensity stronger than Rossi had felt in years. His hands relaxed at his sides, as if the man wasn't aware of what to do with them when he wasn't using them.

"I am Castiel. I need to see Dean Winchester."

"I'm afraid that's not possible."

"You do not understand. If Dean is not allowed to leave here, Zachariah will find him."

"I am sure we can protect your friend mister … Castiel." He corrected himself at the last moment.

"You cannot. Zachariah will find Dean, and will bring him to Michael. Were that to occur, Dean would be lost."

Then Morgan got up, away from the blackboard. "Look, … Castiel. I'm sure we can arrange… something. Let you talk to Dean. If you'd be willing to answer a few questions first. Do you understand that."

"You will let me see Dean?"

"If you answer our questions first."

"Then ask."

Rossi lifted his hand, "Not here, we'll go sit somewhere more.. comfortable." Not to mention, not surrounded by cops, and in a place where they actually had recording equipment, all of which was lacking here.

Novak stood quiet, he didn't twitch, in fact, he looked almost like a statue.

"Just follow me." Derek said.

Rossi followed right behind them both and he was sure he didn't imagine Novak's trench coat moving dramatically, despite a distinct lack of wind.

* * *

***September 22nd 18:08***

* * *

He'd ended up pacing his new cell, investigating it as thoroughly as he had the last one. There was some new system in place. No one was allowed to get close to him. They even told him to back off and stand against the wall, hands in clear sight at all times, when they brought him food. In a way it was almost gratifying to see how much they apparently respected his abilities. When it wasn't annoying as hell because it took away yet another chance of him getting away.

This place was boring. So so boring. He wasn't even allowed any books or magazines out of fear he might do what? Go all Bullseye on them using staples to escape? He was good, he'd be the first to admit that. But he wasn't 'that' good. He really didn't want them to start playing out Silence of the Lambs and putting him in a full straitjacket along with his very own muzzle.

He felt his fingers start tapping a Led Zeppelin song on the bars.

"Hello Dean." His eyes opened wide and his mouth shut tightly, as he turned around to find a teenage mutant ninja angel standing in his cell. Raphael, it seemed, was still wearing the same mechanic, in the exact same outfit.

"What? Didn't feel like frying the entire eastern seaboard today?" Damn.

He wasn't shaking, yet, but it was hard to control the urge. It took him a second to think of another option, calling someone, hoping it would scare the angel off. Where was the holy oil when you needed it?

"They won't see me, Dean. Humans only see us, if we want them to." Raphael smiled, but it was the wrong kind of smile; the kind that made you think of a cat playing with a mouse. Dean was pretty sure he didn't feel like falling in the Archangel's trap.

"Good for you." Dean kept standing. He couldn't show fear, even if he was shaking in his boots. Would Raphael still be pissed about what Cas had said to him last time? Well, it had been funny.

"So let me guess, you didn't like to be put in time out." There was no question in it, neither of them expected an answer. Dean flinched a bit as Raphael came closer.

"I'm not Zachariah, Dean. He's not my superior."

"But you are here to get me to Michael."

"If I have to."

"The answer is still no."

"Why are you being so stubborn, Dean?" Raphael stood in front of him. "You don't have to play strong with me, I won't be impressed with your mortal pretense of courage. I know you're scared. Do you think my vessel didn't feel fear when I asked him for consent."

"And look what that did to him."

"He knew it was a sacrifice, he knew there'd be a price and he agreed to it. Do you know why? Because he knew in his heart that it was the right thing to do."

Dean scoffed at the idea.

"Why would you condemn the entire world, just for the sake of your pride? This world, heaven, you could save it all. Humanity would find paradise and we… we could go home, away from this dust and grime. Away from all this pain and suffering and torment. Why do you want everyone to suffer, Dean?"

Dean almost growled at that. "Because it's human. And because I know better than to trust your lot. Zachariah taught me that much."

"Well once again, I'm not Zachariah" Dean was almost sure that he could see the electricity that implied the archangel's wings. "I know better than to try and change your mind with threats. You've never feared death or pain and I'm sure that won't change any time soon."

That shouldn't sound as scary as it did.

"I'm not here to threaten you, I'm here to make you an offer."


	9. Chapter 8

***September 22nd 2009 21:08***

* * *

Aaron Hotchner stood next to the Sam Winchester and wondered just how no one had ever even noticed just how messed up the young man really was. The boy's mind was lost in some horrible fairy tale up to a point that he wouldn't be able to see reality if it hit him in the face. Yet somehow, he'd still managed to appear normal for close to 22 years before anyone even began to notice that anything was off.

Even now, most of the attention was focused on the older brother, while it was the younger one who… He wasn't a psychiatrist, and he couldn't lay judgment without a thorough examination, but the more he heard from Sam, the more he was sure that the boy needed treatment. He needed medication, and twenty four hour care. The last thing he needed was to be sent to a jail where people wouldn't even begin to realize just how little in touch with reality the youngest Winchester really was.

He wondered if the behavior had escalated because of the separation between the two brothers, or if it had been the reason for their separation. That and the mentions of demon blood. Had Sam devolved to cannibalism? Either way, it seems that both Winchesters had been disgusted by the behavior in question.

Sam's hallucinations about Lucifer were most likely a hint of schizophrenia, previous mentions of visions and a belief in having powers only confirmed the theory. He kept a close eye on Winchester and noticed his difficulty in moving with the shackles. They seemed to slow him down almost to the same speed level that Reid had to take with his crutches.

For some reason Sam had opened up to Reid and Hotch knew they'd have to use that. He just prayed that Reid wouldn't take whatever Winchester said too personal. Winchester froze at that moment and Hotch peered around trying to find out what had bothered him.

The van stopped, a few feet away from the shelter. Hotch hailed it their way and the doors opened. Two men stepped out, a driver and an extra guard. Something was wrong. One of the men held something behind his back, and Hotch saw movement in the back of the van. Did they bring more back up? There wasn't that much space in the van. It was just a glimpse of something reflecting on metal, but it was enough to warn him on time to push Winchester and with him, Reid, to the ground.

Shots ran through the clearing that served as an airfield. Winchester's whisper of "demons" was barely understandable.

Hotch grabbed his gun and shot back into the dark , hoping to at least make their attackers keep their distance.

"We need to get in." Danton said. Danton's partner, Hotch hadn't caught his name, told him to cover him, before moving up to the door, just behind the railing, and kicking open the door of the diner.

Hotch pulled Winchester to his feet while Rayner grabbed Reid. Then all of them ran to the door, while Danton kept shooting. He was in mere seconds later. Hotch and Rayner grabbed a table and pushed it in front of the door while Reid kept an eye on Sam. Danton and his partner pushed the jukebox over to the door for added protection.

"So any reason we're not dead yet?" Danton's buddy spoke up.

There was no real way to be sure, but he quickly threw a glance over to Winchester who was standing in the back, his shackles clacked together as he shifted his feet. He didn't need to say it. Whoever attacked them probably wanted Winchester unharmed. Right now, that was probably their only hope of making it out of this alive.

"Has anyone been able to make a connection yet?" Their phones hadn't worked since before they'd arrived. No service in the area. Hotch couldn't help think that that was suspiciously convenient.

The chains rattled and Hotch turned back to Winchester who'd grabbed a barstool and sat down on it. Reid was standing on his remaining crutch, the other one had been left outside.

"The phone here's out too." Danton's friend said. Hotch really needed to find out his name and soon.

"We need to paint devil's traps." Winchester suddenly said. "I need to find salt and ward the doors and windows."

Danton groaned in disgust. Hotch looked at the boy.

"If they're demons, devil's traps will hold them captive and salt will keep them out. It's the only defense we've got."

"Sam, they're not demons. They're just men."

Sam scoffed. "Yeah right."

"Sam, I know this might not look like it, but they aren't monsters. They're just men and all we have to do is wait for back up. Sooner or later someone will notice we're late."

"You don't get it. This is a siege, it's happened before." He got back up from his stool. "There are demons out there, and if we don't ward the building, sooner or later one of them will slip into one of your throats and try and kill us all! It's how they work!"

"Sam." Aaron was just about to say more when he saw Danton roll his eyes.

"Hotch, just let him draw his trap. It's not like it'll hurt anyone if he does right?" And keep the mad man busy and hopefully pacified while they had to worry about the bigger threat outside. "What do you need for it?"

"A marker, coal, anything that'll stick to the floor."

Danton's buddy pulled out a pack of thick crayons. "Will these do?" He smiled a bit embarrassed. "I bought them for my daughter, she likes… well…"

Sam nodded and accepted the crayons. The shackles rang as he moved up to the door. Hotch noticed that both Rayner and Danton were keeping their guns aimed on Sam at all times. They had to make sure Winchester wasn't making an escape attempt. "Hey Johnny, mind the window, will ya?" Danton said to his friend. Hotch kept his eye on the back entrance. He got up and checked the door. It was locked. There was a window and he stayed out of sight as he took a look out. He noticed several figures lurking around the building.

When he came back to the rest of the group, Winchester was just about finished with his drawing. Hotch recognized the symbols from the elder Winchester's motel room. He wished that Rossi was here, he would have known what the symbol was for.

Winchester got up and started heading to the back. He stopped at the sound of the safety being clicked off. "I need to draw another one at the other entrance."

Hotch motioned at him with his gun and followed him. Reid appeared from out of a storage room, leaning heavily on his remaining crutch. "I found some salt." It pulled the first real smile out of Sam since they'd picked him up in Oklahoma.

"Perfect. Now we stand a chance." The boy sounded almost hopeful. Hotch wished his world could be that simple. But he'd never be that safe.

* * *

***September 22nd 2009 18:12***

* * *

Rossi tried to find the right words before he motioned for Novak to enter the interrogation room. "I have to check if you have any weapons on you." With the man's odd behavior, staying literal and pure honesty seemed to be the best idea.

Novak just looked at him, right through him actually, before he pulled a knife out of his sleeve, then he went through his pockets and looked at what was in them, as if he'd never bothered to check. A pair of keys came out, along with a bar of gum.

"I… I have to check, sir." He added, not quite sure how aggressive he could be before Novak stopped being agreeable.

Novak simply stood there. "You do understand your rights, don't you?" Still no movement. Rossi recited them as he took a step closer. Novak seemed mostly curious when one of the officers started frisking him. Aside of the first knife, no other weapons were found. Rossi took a look at the knife and gave it to the deputy.

"I need that." Was all that Novak said.

"I understand, but we need to look at it first."

"So I can see Dean?" The words were said in a dry monotone that somehow managed to hold a depth of desperation.

"As long as you cooperate." Derek said as he took position at the back of the room while Rossi stayed close to Novak and motioned him to the table.

"Could you restate your name please?" Rossi asked, as he turned on the tape recorder.

Novak stared at the recorder for a second before hunching over.

"I am Castiel, an Angel of the Lord. Formerly of the seventh Garrison of Heaven."

"Formerly?"

"I have rebelled against Heaven. My name was stricken off the roles and I am abomination in the eyes of my brothers."

"Ok." This was going to be even harder than he'd thought it'd be. He placed his hands on the table and noticed that Novak copied his movements. "Could you please explain how you met Dean Winchester?"

Novak nodded. Rossi waited for an answer, two minutes later he was still waiting. He motioned at the man to continue.

"I am the one who pulled him from perdition."

"Perdition?" Another word for hell.

"It was my duty to lead the assault into hell and save his soul from the pit." Yep, definitely hell. David had no real idea what to say to that. He wondered what prison Dean had been in, and 'duty', that implied being given orders.

"Samuel Winchester died in Cold Oak. His brother sacrificed his soul to return him to life. We only found out about the demons' plans for him after his deal had come due."

Deal, some kind of deal, but with whom? Organized crime, the law? Winchester hadn't been arrested, not under his own name at least. Maybe outside of the US? And who did Novak mean with 'we'?

"And you saved him from this?"

"Yes."

David didn't know what it was about Novak that unsettled him as much as it did. Morgan seemed amused. Watching Novak was like trying to grasp a five year old puppetmaster's emotions by looking at the puppet that spoke up for him, while the kid kept messing up the wires.

None of the usual tells and cues seemed to work, and for Novak, even moving seemed to be something he had to consciously think about doing.

David was convinced that if he asked the man to sit tight and wait, then left the room, he'd find him hours later in the exact same position as when he left. "Dean must be pretty grateful to you."

Novak's head tilted. "He thanked me." Then as if he realized that wasn't all. "Then he pushed the tainted one's knife in my chest. It was uncomfortable." No rancor, no anger, simply stating the facts. Rossi wondered if he imagined the hint of fondness.

"That's…" he wasn't even going to think about this. Winchester stabbed the guy, and … nothing?

"So he stabbed you?" David was almost grateful to Morgan for picking up from him.

"After he and Bobby shot at me."

Rossi raised his eyes in prayer for a second.

* * *

***September 22nd 2009 18:15***

* * *

Raphael disappeared. Dean didn't even blink, just lay back down on his bunk. Why bother even pretending he could fight the archangel? Dean didn't want to think about the offer, instead he kept flashing back to their faces, their oh so human eyes looking at him. He pushed his head into the pillow, and saw Madison and all the faces of people they hadn't been able to save. All the ones that were lost because 'he' wasn't good enough.

_"Sam didn't die in Detroit. He said 'yes'." Dean looked upon himself, his future self, the one that really did turn into the monster people liked to think he was; hard, cold, ready to kill whenever needed. It would have been better if his other self's eyes had been black. He couldn't be that lucky._

_"The big yes. To the Devil. Lucifer is wearing him to the prom." The end of the world_

_"Why would he do that?" Whatever Sam would do, he wouldn't do that. He wouldn't …he couldn't._

_"I don't know." The other Dean was the only one who understood just how wrong this was. "Now we haven't got a choice. It's in him and there's no way to get him out." No way to save him. "Now we've got to kill him." His hands slammed on the table, a warning. "And you've got to see it, the whole damn thing, how bad it gets, so you can do it different." His voice grew harsher, colder, more desperate. "Zach said he was going to bring you back to 'O9?" Dean didn't know what was worse, the desperation, or the hint of hope._

_"What do you mean?" But he knew, he just didn't want to admit it._

_"When you get back home you say yes. You hear me. Say yes to Michael." No, no, never._

_"If I let him in, Michael fights the devil. Battle's gonna torch half the planet." He couldn't._

_"Look around you man, half the planet is better than no planet, which is what we have now!" Choices, decisions. The ones they sucked at making. "If I could do it over again, I'd say 'yes' in a heartbeat."_

_"So why don't you?" If this older him was so sure, then why didn't he do it?_

_"I've tried!" And there it was, anger, fear. "I've shouted 'Yes!' till I was blue in the face! The angels aren't listening, they just left. Gave up. It's too late for me. But for you..." And now all the weight was on him._

_"There's got to be another way."_

_"Yeah, that's what I thought." There had to be another way. "I was cocky. Never actually thought I'd lose. But I was wrong. Dean, I was wrong. I'm begging you, say yes." And because it was himself, he could hear the disgust, the pain, aimed at no one but himself. " But you won't, because I didn't. Because that's just not us, is it?"_

Would it be now?


	10. Chapter 9

***September 22nd 2009 21:32***

* * *

The team leader, Agent Hotchner or Hotch as Reid called him, had ordered Sam onto one of the barstools before linking his shackles to the metal bar on the counter. For some reason, Sam didn't think that the man trusted him. Sam looked away from the small group of agents and tried not to pull attention to the small nail he'd managed to pick up earlier while drawing the devil's traps.

He wasn't sure what good it'd do him. Even if he got out of the cuffs, which would be the work of less than a minute, as soon as they let him out of sight for more than a few seconds, the feds still wouldn't let him walk out without a fight. With the demons waiting outside, it'd get them all killed.

He was responsible for enough deaths as it was, no need to add more to the growing list.

Sam took a deep breath and recited at least two different exorcism rituals in his head. He was getting rusty. Not just the months away from Dean, but all the time last year, when he'd used his powers instead of the Latin. It was far too easy to forget the words.

"So how do you kill a demon?"  
Reid took the stool next to him. His remaining crutch was leaned up against the rusty and grime filled counter.

"You don't." It's the answer dad always gave. Sam looked down. "You pin them down in a devil's trap, and then you recite a ritual to send them back to hell. And you pray that the demon's host is still alive once you get them free."

Reid seemed curious. It made Sam wonder how the guy could have ended up with the feds, he seemed more of an academic or a nerd, than a federal agent.

"With my powers I could have. Or if I had Ruby's knife., that would do it too. But I can't… I haven't been able to do ..anything since I stopped drinking …ever since Lucifer."

"What about the knife?"

"Dean had it. I guess the cops have it now. " Sam shivered a bit, hoping that the knife was still safe. They had so few weapons left, they couldn't lose the knife as well. "Then there's the Colt. But the demons took that one. If there's anything in the world that can kill Lucifer, it's the Colt."

"What about vampires?"

"Decapitation."

"So what about stakes?"

Sam rolled his eyes."Useless; so is holy water, or crucifixes. None of the legends work. The only thing that harms a vampire is dead man's blood. It paralyzes them. The only way to kill them is to cut their heads off. The sun just makes them lazy."

"So when are you going to give me that nail?"

"What nail?" Sam tried to look as impassive as possible.

"The one you're trying to hide in between your fingers."

Sam thought about denying it. Reid held out his hand. Sam closed his eyes and handed over the nail. "I wasn't…"

"I know you weren't. So what about ghosts?"

Sam just sat there, he didn't have a clue what to say to that.

* * *

***September 21st 2009 18:16***

* * *

"My superiors gave me the honor of looking after Dean. "

"Your superiors? And what did your superiors want with Dean?"

"Dean is the righteous man who shed blood in hell. The prophecy says that the one who begins it is the only one who can end it. Dean is the sword of Michael, his Vessel." David wondered just what Novak's definition of the word 'righteous' was.

"What happens when all the seals are broken?" If this was some kind of cult, then knowing what they were planning could be important. If this was just some delusion, then well… the same thing.

"The apocalypse."

Of course, when wasn't it the end of the world. "So how many seals are left exactly?"

"None."

David looked up, "What?"Well that was new at least. Most of these doomsday cults stopped themselves just short from calling on the apocalypse.

"Samuel Winchester broke the final seal, he stared the Apocalypse. Lucifer walks the earth." Novak's intensity, if possible, actually increased.

"I must see Dean Winchester. I must bring him to safety or Zachariah will take him to Michael. We must find Sam, before the demons bring him to Lucifer. If Michael gets Dean, Dean will be lost, but if Lucifer finds Sam and gains his consent, all hope for this world, my father's last true Creation, will be lost. "

Morgan and David shared a look. Novak didn't even stand up. It was all in the voice and eyes. Somehow he packed a million different meanings in every single word.

Rossi sat still, Morgan didn't. "Where's Sharon Miller?"

* * *

***September 22nd 2009 18:31***

* * *

Emily had just got off yet another call with Camp Dowry. She'd been trying to reach Mrs. Martin for hours, but it was starting to look as if whoever was responsible for the place, had grown tired of giving her the run around, that or they'd left the phone off the hook.

Garcia had sent her what she'd been able to make off the tape from Deputy Stringer's murder. The static on it had been bad enough to make it almost unusable to get an idea of what Winchester had been up to. Even now, the sound was inaudible except for a few stray words. Most of them coming from Winchester. "Meg", "Sammy".

She could be wrong, but it seemed that Winchester was reacting to things the deputy never said. She called up other recent tapes and fastforwarded through Winchester's stay in his new cell. Getting escorted in, obviously being bored and then talking to someone who wasn't there.

She pressed play and listened. The static in the prison's system really was a problem.

"You can't." Winchester said. "They're already gone." He scoffed at something the voices in his head were telling him. "Why would you?"

Winchester backed up even further against the wall. Not obviously so, but enough to make it clear he was scared of something. "They're just children, it wasn't… it wasn't their fault."

Winchester jumped up. "You're wrong! You're wrong damn it!" He froze in mid motion. "You're just a bunch of dicks aren't you! All holy and merciful, when it serves your own purpose. Angel of healing my ass. They're just children."

Winchester pulled back, and winced at something. "I had no other choice, they would have kept on killing. I couldn't…"

"No!"

"The answer will still be no." But he seemed more subdued this time, almost as if he had to fight back tears. "It will always be no."

She zeroed in to the look on his face. He seemed so young and so old at the same time. She'd almost feel sorry for him. She waited for more of the odd behavior before fast forwarding again. Pacing, sitting, an attempt at sleeping and then… she straightened up at as two figures got up to Winchester's cell. Five minutes ago.

Two of the deputies stood guard at the exits and they started stuttering as soon as she appeared. She didn't let either of them get a word out before opening the door. She heard them before they saw her.

"So tell me, Dean," the sheriff stood in front of the cell, a few steps back, he was unarmed, but he pretty much radiated anger. "Why her, why my Sharon. Why her friends?"

Dean sat back in his cell as the lawman stood in the hall. Thank God, Miller hadn't opened the door of the cells, and there was a second deputy with him. It was all very much in order, very much legit, very much set up so Dean couldn't get a mistrial, just because the father of one of his 'victims' was allowed to beat him up. Aside from the part where Miller had no business being here in the first place.

"The feds, they say you're a vigilante, that you think you're a good guy." Emily got ready to take a step forward. "So why go after a bunch of innocent kids?" The man raised his arm. "And don't tell me they weren't children. Don't you dare tell me that." The last sentence was hissed and Winchester's shrug was so melodramatic that Emily could spot it from five feet away.

"Why would you possibly think those children needed killing? Why?"

Dean pulled up one leg, keeping the other on the floor. One hand was on the bunk, the other fiddled with something on his lap. "At the camp, only eight of the girls were put in quarantine." The sheriff seemed surprised, Emily remembered the word, it had been written on the print out as well. They'd checked up on it then. It was one of many reasons why she needed to talk to Donna Martin.

They'd interrogated every single one of the parents and not one of them had heard a single thing about any of their kids being placed into quarantine. The Kims' had gone on record to say that if they'd heard about Susan getting sick at camp, they would have driven up and taken her home.

"The files said they had some kind of fever, they needed to be separated from the others. All of the girls were locked away for at least a week. Eight of the girls and one member of the staff. One of the teachers took care of them."

One of the teachers, that'd be Clarissa Burns. Her name kept coming up.

"I found the chalice she used. The stuff in it smelled like vamp blood. I checked to make sure. Once they drank the blood, they were gone. No way left to save them."

"You bastard!" Miller took a step forward, grabbing for the bars, it was that moment that Emily took to step forward. The sheriff turned around and looked at her.

Emily didn't say a word, she just looked between them, Miller almost growled. "He's got my Sharon." She knew that that that was all the apology she would ever get out of the man.

Winchester snorted. "You're insane." He lowered his head, almost as if he had to convince himself. "If I had your daughter, she'd already be dead." Emily had to grab Miller's arm to hold him back. Winchester didn't seem to get the danger he was in. His voice sounded cold as he continued. "You don't take risks like that with a vampire, you don't keep them captive unless you've got no other choice. I never took Sharon, I've never even seen her. But if I were you, if I saw her next, I'd run. Because by now, she'd have to be pretty damn hungry."

Emily wondered if she imagined Miller's wince, the way his hand moved to his side.

"She's just a girl." His voice was shaky.

The words struck Winchester and Emily noticed him fiddling with the sleeves of his overall. "I'm sorry. I really am. But she isn't. She's a monster, she has killed before and she will kill again. It's in her nature now."

"You bastard." It sounded weak.

"I'm not the bad guy. I'm not the one that forced that blood down her throat. If you want to be angry with someone, then find the bitch that gave them that blood, cause she and her boyfriend, they're the ones responsible for all of this. "

* * *

***September 21st 2009 18:46 PM***

* * *

"I do not know." It had been his answer for the past half hour.

"Look here, Novak. Sharon Miller is fifteen years old. She's a little girl, and she's missing. Your friend Dean, claims he didn't take her. That leaves us with you. Where is she?"

"I do not know."

"Yeah, you already said that."

"Morgan." David tried to stop him, but Morgan knew they couldn't let Novak get in on his fantasies again.

"You worry for her?"Novak sounded almost gentle

"Yes, I worry."

"You couldn't have saved Daniel."

Derek froze, what?

"You couldn't have saved Daniel. Even if you had turned in Carl Buford when you were a child. His death was not your fault."

The guy's eyes. "I don't know what you're talking about. "

"Daniel is the name of the boy whose grave you visit every year. He lived in Rockford. His mother's name was Johanna, she died five years ago. She worried for years that her son was in pain, in suffering, unloved. It would have pleased her to know that someone cared for him. But she had to let him go, she couldn't protect her son from her husband. From her husband's desires. Daniel ran, only to be offered an out by the one kind of thing that scared him the most. They lived in… "

Derek raised his hand."How do you…" How did this guy even know about this. Had he read his file? Winchester researched his jobs, so did he know who they were as soon as the BAU had landed in Garber? Had he known about the murders, about the young boy who's body he'd found, who's fate still haunted him to this day?

Novak's eyes were filled with sympathy, Derek wanted to strangle him for it. For a moment Derek could feel a soft touch inside of his head, inside his heart. He took a step back.

"Stop it!" He was just imagining it, but the way Novak looked at him…

"I am sorry. I should respect your personal space. Dean has talked to me about this."

"Has he now?"

"We have had many conversations."

"Look, this isn't about…" Rossi interrupted. "I don't know how you found out about… that." Derek could see from the way the older agent looked at him that he'd probably be asked about it later. "But this is about Sharon. A young girl, who's missing, who is possibly in danger. Who has a family, a father, brothers, all of whom miss her dearly and want her back."

Rossi leaned over to Novak.

"Do you understand what that's like?"

Novak tilted his head.

"I don't know where she is." Morgan almost raised his arms in defeat. Damn it. "But there is a woman." He stopped. "A teacher. She is their mother." A moment silence. "She must be destroyed."

Then his eyes turned back to Derek. "The other boy's name was Jason. He was fourteen years old. He was under the care of his brother, his brother was arrested, Jason ran. "

"How do you know this?"

"Their names and spirits scream loudly from your soul."

"What?"

"You are a good man Derek Morgan."Derek shivered, his hands started to shake. He wasn't sure which was worse, the fear or the anger coursing through his head. "You did not deserve what was done to you. You are no less in my father's eyes because of it."

"I… Shut up!"

"But you are a righteous man, Derek. As is Dean. And it is the woman you seek. The teacher, who is responsible for the children's condition."


	11. Chapter 10

***September 22nd 19:30 ***

* * *

Derek seemed subdued, he was on the phone with Garcia. Emily left him to grab a coffee.

"Novak and Winchester both point at Clarissa Burns."

"So who is she?"

"An English teacher, as far as I can see. She was a volunteer at Camp Dowry and has been at the station asking questions about the case. All… normal questions. Nothing different from what any of the other people in the community have been asking."

"She's Donna Martin's cousin." Rossi said. "One of the deputies told me."

"So, her aunt runs Camp Dowry, and Burns has been running interference with Martin. Something's wrong there."

"Still nothing from Martin. And believe me, I've been trying."

"Maybe we should go talk to her?" Derek put down his phone as he said so. He didn't mention what he'd been calling about. He'd been agitated ever since Novak's interrogation. If this were anyone but Derek, he'd look terrified. Derek just seemed … twitchy.

"I'm up for it." And Emily was surprised to find that she was. The whole run around business was starting to piss her off. All she'd wanted to do was ask a few simple questions, yet she hadn't been able to contact Mrs. Martin since they started the case.

"One of us needs to stay here though. I had to order Miller away from Winchester earlier. We can't risk him going near the guy a second time." He'd already been taken off the case. That didn't give them the right to throw the man out of his own station. They didn't want to piss of the locals.

Rossi hesitated a moment. "I'll do it. Maybe you should take Miller with you? He knows the area and talking to Martin might help us find out what that quarantine business is about."

Emily bit her lip. "No. Winchester said something earlier, that if he took Sharon, she'd be dead already. I don't think he was lying. I don't think he ever had her."

"And neither did Novak." They sat quiet for a moment.

"So where is she?" Rossi finally asked the million dollar question. Derek put his palms on the table and Prentiss took another look at the file.

"What about Hotch and Reid? Shouldn't they have landed by now?" She'd been trying to reach them for over an hour, but still no connection.

"I don't know." Emily got her coat. "I'll call him on the way, see what's keeping them." Morgan followed right behind her.

* * *

***September 22nd 2009 21:39***

* * *

Sam was starting to worry. Change that, continued to worry. The demons hadn't even tried to get in since they were first forced into the building. It was as if they were waiting them out. No clouds, no smell of sulfur surrounding the building. Wood creaked above them and he could hear some of the tiles on the roof clatter. It could be the wind. What was left of the diner was about ready to collapse. He tugged at his shackles. The good doctor looked at him and he quickly stopped. Reid seemed to have a never ending supply of questions and Sam wasn't sure why he kept answering.

Maybe it was the answers and anecdotes that Reid kept coming up with. It was almost like a real life Google engine standing right next to you. Enter one bit of data, get ten back. It was almost like being back at Stanford with Becky and Zach, except for the questions being less about legal cases and more about demons and monsters. Like a mix of his two childhoods.

Another creak above them. Sam gripped the shackle attached to his wrists before he got a hold of himself. "There's someone on the roof."

Reid looked up. He shared a look with Hotch. The older agent motioned at one of the clones to back him up. The bald man grabbed a flashlight and followed his boss to the back. There had been a small attic above the diner, Sam could see that much through the holes in the roof that let through an occasional splash of rain. It worried him more than the cracks in the windows, or in between the boarded up glass.

He tried his shackles again, or at least the bar that they'd been attached to.

"You have to calm down, Sam." Reid had pulled out his own gun. It felt misplaced in his hand. "Hotch will stop them."

Sam glared, but he noticed that Reid was getting ready in his own way. He liked the man, but FBI training or not, he was just a civilian. He had no idea of what could be coming after him. Sam forced himself to take a few deep breaths. "Don't let them get me alive." He whispered. "If it comes to that. Please, kill me before they take me to him. Kill me and salt and burn my bones."

"Sam." Gentle, rational.

"Promise me. Promise me you'll kill me."

"You know I can't do that."

"What, cop morality?" Sam got up off his chair. "Do you have any idea what's at stake here?" Reid wasn't much smaller than him, but he wasn't as big, wasn't as muscled. Sam knew all too well how intimidating he could be. "If they get me to consent, millions will die! I can't… I can't let that happen."

"Sam." Reid wasn't intimidated. He blinked though.

"I'll make you kill me if I have to."

Reid looked at him with pity, remembering something. Sam wished he knew what it was. "Please, for everyone's sake. I'm not suicidal. I don't want to die. But if they get me. I'd be begging for death and so would everyone else on the planet."

* * *

***September 22nd 2009 20:45***

* * *

Derek got out of the car and checked his gun, before moving to the door. Prentiss was already waiting for him, three more cops at her side. They'd had to hurry to get a search warrant, but it had come through mere minutes earlier. Thank God for judges that worked late.

There wasn't any doorbell, so he knocked.

"Mrs. Martin. This is the FBI, we have some questions." No answer, he knocked again. Only silence answered them. "Cover me."

Then he kicked in the door. It wasn't even locked. He expected a mess, but it was nothing like that. Just an old lady's home. He heard a dog barking in the back room and opened the door. A small Terrier came rushing out, jumping at his legs.

Emily sniggered behind her hand before continuing. Derek heard one of the cops yell 'clear', he ignored it and moved to the room that the dog came out of. Nothing. " Clear!"

He waved at Emily to take the room to the left, while he took the door on the right. It led to a small living room. He heard something. It was soft, a moan.

The woman lay on her side, there was blood on her forehead. "Help me." She sounded hoarse. "Prentiss, get an ambulance." He didn't wait for an answer and went to get the woman something to drink. It didn't take him long to find a bottle, half of it had been poured out when it fell, but he quickly let her have the rest before helping her up and checking her for injuries. Aside from the cut on her forehead she seemed to be unharmed.

"Clarissa. Where's Clarissa."

"Mrs. Martin."

"She was here. She wanted to know what that nice young agent had come for." She started coughing.

"Agent?"

"Agent Corgan. He wanted to ask about the girls. Poor girls, getting sick at camp. Clarissa was kind enough to look after them for me." Derek helped her up.

"Mrs. Martin, did you call the parents about the girls being under quarantine?"

"Clarissa…" the old lady coughed again and Derek helped her take another sip. "She called them. Such a sweet girl. It was just a flu bug, just…" The old woman lost consciousness.

"Prentiss?"

"I've checked the files Derek, someone already went through them."

"Winchester." The word slipped from his lips before he could stop it. Prentiss looked at him. "Seems like he was here to ask Mrs. Martin some questions."

"So he was right. There really was a quarantine."

"They were both right about Burns as well."

"Maybe." Derek looked at the journal Prentiss gave him. "So where is she?"

* * *

***September 22nd 2009 20:45***

* * *

Novak was still waiting in the interrogation room. He'd been asking to see Dean again. David was starting to wonder if he should just let him. Put Novak in a cell and let him go past Winchester as he did.

The man just sat there. Still, almost frozen, as if he was a robot in sleepmode, just waiting for something to activate him. He really needed to stop thinking about Novak as if he were something other than human. Regardless of what Novak himself believed, he was just a man. He needed help and Winchester had used that. Neither of them even realized it, they fit one another's delusions, so becoming partners had probably felt natural.

Rossi put a cup of coffee down in front of Novak. "Here, I thought you might need some." Novak just looked at it then ignored it.

They sat there for about five more minutes and would have probably stayed like that until David started talking again when Novak started shaking. Rossi got out of his chair, but before he could do anything, Novak had already fallen to the floor.

David knelt beside him. "What's wrong?"

Novak froze, his back arched and his hands fell to the floor. He opened his mouth in a silent scream. Rossi could hear sirens and car alarms sounding outside. The lights of the room started flickering. For a moment David couldn't help but think back of those childhood days when faith had come so easily to him.

"Father!"

Novak curled up, his arms grabbing his legs. David yelled at the door, for someone to call a doctor. Glass was shattering and there was a sound unlike anything he'd ever heard, his ears bled for a second and then it stopped and Novak lay there, still shaking.

"My wings. I can't move my wings. It feels like something is tearing at my grace." He sounded in pain.

All Rossi could do was try and sooth him, saying things like "it'll be fine" but all it did was agitate Novak even more.

"I need to see Dean. "

He started getting off the floor. Rossi grabbed his arm and tried to stop him. He would have had more luck trying to hold back the tide. He raised his hand to his ear, blood dripped on his fingertip. They were in the hall before David managed to let go.

"Novak… Castiel. Stop."

Novak turned back to him. "I need to protect Dean. Before my brothers get to him." His voice sounded soft, almost kind. Almost as if he were apologizing for something he knew he'd have to do.

His hands moved to David's head, there was a soft whisper and then all David could do was fall.

* * *

***September 22nd 2009 21:10***

* * *

Sharon stared down at the woman in front of her. She looked at her as if it was the first time she ever saw her teacher for real. The gothic make up so obvious it almost made you wonder if she'd just stepped in from the streets. She smelled of cheap perfume.

"Ms. Burns, please." She whispered.

"We were going to be together forever. Forever ever. Did you know that?" Sharon stared at the teacher, the woman was dressed, or undressed in black silk underwear. "We were going to be a family. We still are." The only thing about her that was fully covered were her arms.

She grabbed a box and placed it down on the floor right before Sharon's feet. "Forever ever." The woman repeated as she pulled out a tiny metal scalpel.

Sharon shivered, feeling the cold more with every passing second and wishing she could hide.

"But the Hunter took him away from us." Ms Burns actually growled. "He killed him. Killed him, cut off his pretty pretty head. But you, you're still here. Here, here with me, together, forever. He murdered my Stan, my forever, he murdered my girls, all our beautiful daughters." She picked up the knife and sliced an incision along Sharon's arm."But he didn't kill you. So so pretty." The teacher held the blade to her lips and licked off the blood. Sharon shivered, as she remembered the blood on her fangs as they'd tasted their first victim. Then all she felt was pain as Ms Burns suckled on the cut, sipping up her blood.

Sharon tried to back away and started crying. Her heart beat in fear.


	12. Chapter 11

***September 22nd 2009 21:45***

* * *

Aaron led the way to the back, his gun at ready. He heard Winchester talking to Reid, but ignored it for now. They'd deal with Winchester when it got that far. When they got out of here.

He heard a creak above him, the next instant the wood over their heads gave way and a man dressed in a bloody deputy outfit fell through. The man stumbled down and fell on his side. Johnny held back, his shotgun aimed at the man on the floor and Hotchner lifted his gun in between the fallen attacker and the roof. Shots started breaking out outside and Aaron winced for a moment when he heard Rayner and Danton responding with shots of their own.

"Stop it! You're under arrest." The man didn't answer. Instead he started getting up. It wasn't until then that Aaron realized he was armed. "Drop the gun."

The man didn't answer. He looked up with something like religious fervor heating his eyes. What happened next seemed to take hours, yet it all happened in seconds, it all felt like a blur. Both Aaron and Johnny got ready to shoot, they had no other choice. The attacker got there first. His bullet hit Johnny, Hotch's bullet hit their attacker no more than a second later, but it was already too late.

He let the man fall to the floor and aimed his gun up, he heard another sound and got out of the way. Bullets hit the place he'd occupied only seconds earlier. He shot back, a muffled scream. Then nothing, more shots from the front, and Winchester stood there, pulling at his chain while Hotchner grabbed Johnny in his arms and pulled him to safety.

Danton screamed his friend's name, while Hotch took over his place at the window.

Nothing else happened, the shots stopped and Hotch stood there, gun at ready. Winchester's chains rattled, Danton's breathing slowed and he could hear a man's moans, their attacker.

"Is it over?"

"For now."

"He's human." The words came from Winchester.

Hotch gave him a look. "Demons, they're not stopped by bullets."

"That's right Sam, he's human, they all are."

"No." Winchester didn't get to continue, as the attacker moaned again. Danton ignored him, he was holding his shirt over his friends wound. Johnny was bleeding bad. Hotch didn't want to say anything, but he didn't think the man was going to make it.

Hotch took another look up, listening for sounds. Then he grabbed the man's legs and pulled him to safety. His first shot had hit the man's shoulder, his second had left him bleeding in the stomach.

"Stay still, and I'll see what I can do." The man looked up at him and Hotch tore off a part of the man's shirt.

"You're not with the local police. Where did you get that outfit?"

The man moaned again."We stopped them to take their car. They're martyrs now."

"You killed those police officers?" he asked, just to make sure.

"They died in God's name! Amen. They rest in the arms of the Lord."

Sam seemed taken aback, shocked. "Why?" It made Aaron realize one thing about him. Sam Winchester might be many things, but he wouldn't kill bystanders just to get his way. It was a small comfort considering their situation.

Aaron repeated Sam's question. "Why?"

"To get Lucifer's Vessel, to cleanse it so Satan can no longer use it as a foothold on this plane. "

Aaron looked to the side and noticed Sam's reaction.

"You murdered innocent people just to get to me?" Sam whispered. He seemed in shock. "Why? They had nothing to do with this."

But the downed man ignored Winchester's words, he seemed repulsed by the young man. Instead his focus went back to Hotchner.

"Do not let him die." The man whispered. "If he dies, Lucifer gains entry. Millions will die."

"What?" Sam again. "That's nonsense, Lucifer can't get into me without consent. That's not how it works!"

The attacker died, and Hotchner noticed a crucifix around his neck, it was covered in blood.

* * *

***September 22nd, 2009 21:01***

* * *

The first thing Dean heard was the sirens, the second thing was the car alarms, but it's when his ears started bleeding that he really got the message.

"Damn it Cas, when are you guys going to learn to lower the damn volume."

The door opened and one of the cops guarding it came in, a shotgun in his hand.

"Stay put," was the only thing he said to Dean before keeping an eye on the door.

Silence.

Then screams, muffled sounds, bodies falling to the floor, gunshots.

"Oh man."

The Deputy stared up, his body tense, shaking. He almost dropped his gun when the door slammed open. He backed off a step before shooting. Dean could have told him that'd be useless.

"Cas, man, you're a sight for sore eyes." He got up to the bars. "Get me out of here."

Castiel grabbed hold of one of the bars and pulled it open. It snapped as if it were a twig.

The Deputy still stood there, just … staring.

"Cas?"

The angel lifted his head to the man's forehead and whispered something. A second later the cop fell to the floor.

"So just out of curiosity, how many of these cops did you put out of commission?"

Cas actually seemed to have to think about the question. "Six. There were also fifteen civilians that stood in my way."

"Man, you're awesome." Even Dr Sexy MD wouldn't have been that bad ass. Dean grinned and patted the angel on his back. "Now let's get the Impala and get out of here."

"I can't." Dean froze and stared at his angel.

"What? Why not?"

"I am sealed in place."

"Whoa? What?"

"My brethren have locked me to this building, they placed a seal around the station."

"Seal? As in the 66 seals that held Lucifer in hell?"

Cas almost seemed embarrassed. "Yes."

Dean tilted his head, "What the hell?" He grabbed Cas' arm. "They can't just do that, ground you like that, we'll get you out of here, come on."

The angel followed him, Dean didn't think it was for any bigger reason then because he really didn't have anything else to do. When they got past the interrogation room he heard a phone go off. He hesitated for a second until he saw where it came from. A man was lying in the door opening. It was one of the feds.

Dean took his phone and accepted the call. "Rossi, this is Morgan. The teacher's definitely involved. We're off to arrest her now."

Dean hesitated for a second, he really shouldn't be saying anything. With the feds away, this'd be the perfect time to get out and be gone before they even bothered coming back. But if Burns was involved then…

"Don't be idiots." He said before he could stop himself.

"Winchester?" The agent seemed spooked.

"Look, I don't care what you think about me. But that woman's a monster. If you go after her, she'll eat you alive, literally."

"If you've hurt Rossi."

"He's fine. So is everyone else. But you'd better get over here and fast. Because I don't know how much longer I can keep Cas from doing his angelic smiting thing." Hopefully they wouldn't get back until after he and Cas were gone. Better a bit of a risk, than having some feds taken apart by a vampire.

There was no time to look for the Impala.

"Cas, can you get me to the teacher's place. If I don't get there fast…" he didn't need to finish the sentence.

Castiel touched his shoulder and the next thing he knew he was standing outside. The first thing he saw was the black guy, Morgan, kicking in the teacher's door. He really needed to get his hands on a machete.

* * *

***September 22nd 2009 21:55*

* * *

**

Vinnie sat in the back of the truck. The reverend was yelling orders. They were ten men strong. Ten men, and one lone girl who wasn't supposed to be here. Vinnie winced as the reverend hit his daughter, knocking her to the floor.

She just looked up to him. "I'm sorry daddy, but I wanted to help."

"This is no place for a woman, Marissa. We're fighting the devil. We are doing God's work. Hallelujah! Praise the lord!"

Marissa sat there, her hair hung over her face. Vinnie had wanted to go up to her, to comfort her, but instead he stayed put and reloaded his gun. He still felt depressed over the deputies they'd killed to get the outfits they were wearing now.

The men were martyrs for the cause. They died to serve God, they hadn't understood how important their mission was, so they had stood in the way of God's soldiers when the reverend and his men had stopped them to get their van.

"Satan has given them shelter, Satan is guarding them, guarding his Vessel. But the foul Beast will not stop us. We will find him, we will cleanse him, we will kill him. For the Glory of God."

The fervor around him was starting to scare him. Yet when Vinnie looked at Marissa, she was smiling.

* * *

***September 22nd 2009 20:55***

* * *

Clarissa Burns' place was in the back of the grounds. Two of the deputies stayed with Mrs. Martin while Derek, Prentiss and the last remaining deputy headed out to look for the woman's cousin

He quickly called the station for back up. Nothing, all the phones seemed to be busy. Then he tried Rossi's cell phone.

"Rossi, this is Morgan. The teacher's definitely involved. We're off to arrest her now."

There was no immediate answer. Derek was just about to make sure he had the older agent on the phone.

"Don't be idiots." The air around him seemed to drop a few degrees.

"Winchester?" Oh shit, if Winchester had Rossi's phone. How had the man gotten out? They hadn't even taken half the remaining officers at the station.

"Look, I don't care what you think about me. But that woman's a monster. If you go after her, she'll eat you alive, literally." Then it hit him, Winchester actually did believe what he was saying. Derek couldn't believe that the man, who by all definitions was a serial killer, was actually concerned about him. A serial killer who had Rossi's phone…

"If you've hurt Rossi."

"He's fine." Winchester seemed disgusted at the notion that he'd even consider harming anyone. Then again to him, Deputy Stringer had just been a demon, those eight girls had been vampires… None of them were human to the man so what did they matter. "So is everyone else." Dean continued. "But you'd better get over here and fast. Because I don't know how much longer I can keep Cas from doing his angelic smiting thing."

It didn't take Derek long to get it. Winchester wanted him gone from here. He wanted him to return to the station. Either so Winchester could take care of Burns on his own, or so that he and his friend could escape while Morgan and the others were racing for the station.

He called the last of the cops and made him head for the station. They couldn't risk not doing it, especially if no one was picking up a phone.

The small cottage looked terrible, barely maintained. It had been beautiful once upon a time, but that had been years ago, when someone actually kept up with the gardening and cleaning the windows.

Derek motioned Prentiss to the right and got ready to kick in the door.

* * *

***September 22nd 2009 21:55*

* * *

**

"I can help." Sam said. The agent on the floor glared at him. "My dad taught me how to field dress a wound before I was six. I helped take care of my first bullet wound when I seven. I can help."

Hotchner seemed to hesitate a moment, then he and Reid shared a look, they nodded and the older agent came up to Sam. He grabbed Sam's hand and undid the shackle from the metal bar. "What do you need?"

"Clean towels, cloth, something to dress the wound with, water if possible."

Hotchner nodded and Sam got to work. The first thing he did was carefully remove the guy's shirt so he could see the bullet wound. It was bad. When he was handed a bottle of water, Sam nodded and used most of it to clean the wound.

The agents stood at ready while Sam did his work. "It's alright." Sam told the man. "The bullet went right through, it'll be fine." He said it as much to calm down the victim as he did it for his friends who were hovering around them.

The chains weren't helping him, but he tried to ignore them as much as possible.

Reid and Hotchner were whispering in the corner and for once, Sam wished they'd believe him, when he told them about the angels, or crazy hunters.

"You seemed surprised that they'd kill people for you?" the fed still kneeling next to him said.

Sam wasn't sure what to say to that.

"Even when Walker came after me, the only people he'd hurt were me, or maybe Dean, and even then only to knock him out and tie him up. To use him as bait. I've had hunters after me before, but most of them, they don't kill innocent people just to set up a trap. They may think I'm a threat, and they'd get Dean out of the way, because they know that he'd kill them if they laid a finger on me. But they wouldn't knowingly kill innocent people. These guys… they went too far."

"What would you have done if they just came after you?"

"I don't know, I … if they had a way to stop Lucifer, I'd at least have listened to them. But I wouldn't trust people that kill innocent cops, no matter what good goal they think they serve."

"Really, so when your brother kills a cop, that's…"

"Dean doesn't kill humans. Not unless it's self defense."

The fed rolled his eyes so hard that Sam was about to ask if he needed a salve for it.

"I need to sew him up, to stop the bleeding."

"We don't have any thread, or bandages or first aid kits. In fact, all we've got is you."

He started to get up. Sam looked up, he wasn't sure what the man was thinking, but if he had a guess, he'd say he wouldn't like it.

"Danton?" Hotch and Reid froze and looked their way.

"Look, all that those guys outside want is him, right? And they've already said they're not going to kill him. So why not use that? We threaten to kill him if they don't let us call for help and wham, we get an ambulance and Johnny gets to live.

"Are you insane!" Grayson was the first to get away from the window.

"Well, it's not like we're really going to hurt him. Just pretend we would. Just use their obsession with him to get Johnny out of here alive."

"No."

"But…"

"No, Agent Danton. And that's final." Sam took the shirt that he'd been given and used it to bandage the downed agent.

Danton raised his arms in defeat and moved back to the window, just as he did so, another shot burst through the glass, breaking what was left of it. Danton stood there for a second, frozen, before he slowly started sinking to his knees. His brains exploded out of his skull where the bullet had hit him. And here Sam was, without a shotgun or even his hands free, to help hold them off.

* * *

***September 22nd 2009 21:05*

* * *

**

There was an axe sticking out of a block in what was left of the camp. Dean picked it up and rand his finger over the edge, it was blunter than he'd prefer, but it would have to do.

"Here vampy vampy." He whispered as he felt his orange jumpsuit grow heavy in the rain.

He saw movement. It wasn't much, but it left him on his guard as he followed it. He ended up coming down into the small camp hospital. Movement again, he was ready to use the axe to see if he could lure it out, if it were a vampire.

Suddenly it came forward, it was a terrier, badly taken care of.

"Hey there boy…" It growled as he tried to get closer. "It's alright, where's your owner?"

The dog didn't move, but Dean could see blood on the dog's collar.

"It's ok,…"Then the dog slunk towards him. Dean grabbed a biscuit he'd saved from lunch out of his pocket and handed it over to the dog. "See, that wasn't too bad, was it?"

He leaned over the dog and checked its collar. There was a name and address on it, that belonged to one of the hikers that had gone missing.

Dean patted the dog and let it go, there was still police rope from where the cops had found the bodies in the well. They hadn't bothered to look further than that. They hadn't had reason to do so. And Burns' cottage was only a few minutes back.

The dog started whining when he tried to leave it.

"It's ok, I'm just going to find the bitch that murdered your owners." The dogs ears perked up, almost as if it understood what Dean was saying. The dog seemed to be trying to get his attention for some reason.

"Look boy, I'll come back and pet you when it's over, but right now there's vamps to hunt. You know, mean bitey things that like to eat people?"

That's when he realized the dog was heading towards a door marked winter cellar, a door that despite its marked purpose, was standing wide open.


	13. Chapter 12

**  
**

***September 22nd 2009 21:02***

* * *

Jimmy woke up in the middle of a hallway. His hands were tied behind his back and when he tried to roll over he noticed that his legs were cuffed together as well. He closed his eyes, feeling like he'd just spent a night on a bender. Well possibly more than a night. Then he remembered, Amelia, Claire, but most of all, Castiel.

He stared up into the barrels of about six guns. If his hands hadn't been cuffed already, he'd be raising them in the blink of an eye.

"Cas, where are you?" he whispered, not sure what had happened. He'd gone from blissful slumber in the back of his head, hiding behind Castiel's overwhelming presence, to full awareness in a room with far too many lights blazing in his eyes.

It wasn't like the last time he'd been aware. Cas wasn't gone, not really, but his presence seemed almost subdued.

One of the cops stared at him and crossed himself. Jimmy couldn't help a chuckle, crossing yourself against an angel? Wasn't that like … like jumping in a lake to dry yourself?

"He took Winchester." The cop said.

"Winchester must have knocked him out and ran. Some thank you." A deep gravelly voice.

Jimmy seriously doubted that, for one thing, there's no way that Dean 'could' have knocked Cas out.

Jimmy groaned and rolled to his side.

"Where am I?" he asked, still a bit groggy.

A man, dressed in a suit came forward and knelt down next to him. "You're in Garber police station." It was the same voice he'd heard earlier. "What's your name?"

Jimmy tried to get up, and cringed. "Jimmy, Jimmy Novak. Where's Castiel?" he shivered, feeling the warmth where Cas was in his head go cold. "Where's Sam and Dean? What's going on?"

"Mister Novak, this is serious. Do you know why Castiel came here?"

Oh shit, hadn't he given enough? Why did Cas make him deal with this on his own? "I don't… I'm not that aware when… What happened to Cas?"

The man just looked at him and Jimmy could think of only one thing to do. "Christo!"

But no response, no eyes turning black or demons flinching away. Just men, cops and him in cuffs.

"Mister Novak, you're under arrest for the murder of Simon Durgiss."

Jimmy felt his mouth fall open. Oh God no, what had, and then he remembered flashes, Cas rebelling, the archangel, a moment of utter fear and pain as the light tore him to pieces, death and then… sleep, slumber.

"What did he do?" he asked, terrified. And what about him?

"Mister Novak, this is important, where did Dean go?"

Jimmy couldn't give him an answer, no matter how hard he tried to remember. And Cas was snoring in his head, well something like it.

* * *

***September 22nd 2009 21:05***

* * *

Derek took the lead. The steps were slippery; a strange thing on an indoor basement. There wasn't enough light to see what was causing it. The basement door stood wide open, as if inviting them down. He tried the light switch, but to no effect. A flashlight jumped on behind him, and he silently thanked Emily for it.

With every step down, he kept listening for sounds that might tell them what was up. There was the creaking of the wood beneath his feet, Emily's footsteps behind him. And the sound of someone sobbing echoing through a space that was far too big to be in a regular basement.

You wouldn't notice anything at first. It seemed a simple basement, empty space, shelves, beef jerky and canned food on one side and Christmas decorations on the other.

He could spot light from beneath one of the shelves. As soon as he pulled the thing it moved forward, like a hidden door.

Emily radioed it in to the agents still at Mrs. Martin's place.

There wasn't much light, it looked like one of those tunnels pioneers had dug to give them a safe way out during Indian attacks, or at least an attempt at copying one of those. Someone had placed candles on small ledges on the side. About half of them were lit, the other half had melted down, wax dripping over wood and on the floor. Others had lost their wick about halfway through leaving behind barely recognizable stumps.

There hung a smell of rosary in the hallway.

He heard a woman, possibly a girl, crying and moved forward until they came to a fork in the way. They didn't even have to talk about it. Emily took the left while he continued onwards.

It took some time before his eyes got used to the limited light, hoping to catch a sight of anything that could help. He ended up facing shelves. There were bottles filled with stale blood. Most of them were covered in dust.

Someone had been emptying some of them in the sink, leaving behind dark brown stains. One of the bottles was left, standing open.

A door creaked, he could hear a giggle behind him. He turned around trying to find it. It sounded almost childlike. He tilted his head, listening for more when a burst of agony spread through his skull. He hit the ground. He tried to get up, when he felt someting crashing down on his head. There was a woman there, he could see her through blurry blood-soaked eyes. She had a shovel in her hand. His hand reached for his head and came back bloody.

"Perfect, perfect. Pretty." The woman was shaking, rambling. "They took my pretty, took Stan. Stan was…" her face was covered in white makeup that barely hid the gashes in her cheek. She frowned and her wrinkles grew deeper. She looked about late thirties, early forties. The gashes looked fresh, and there was blood on her lips.

"Clarissa Burns?"

"Lovely Clarissa, he used to call me. Said I was gorgeous, my beautiful Stan." She hit him again and crawled on top of him. He stared up at her, too shaky to push her of.

"The Hunter killed him." She whispered in his ear. "Took away my Stan, my life, my girls…"

"Why the girls, Clarissa?" Morgan needed to gain time, he needed to gain focus, get his hands back on his gun.

She singsonged her boyfriend's name and writhed against him. "He deserved better, better than me. He was so pretty, he deserved pretty girls. So I told him, I said, 'Stan, what about a family." She was smiling, showing bloody teeth. "So he did, for me, we had a family, our girls, our children."

She swatted Morgan's hand away from his gun, grabbed it and pushed it away from him. "Stan did it for me. And I knew, knew, he'd stay for the girls, wouldn't leave me. Wouldn't leave me …existing, half alive, but never truly so. Not like I'm now." She sounded sad, broken. Seems like she'd been half insane before, but losing her partner had driven her over the edge and into freefall. "But the Hunter took him, took them all, all but me and my pretty pretty girl."

Morgan was too weak to do anything but lie there and stare up as she raised the shovel and got it ready to bring it down once more.

There was a loud bang. She shrieked and he managed to squirm away. He looked up into the last pair of eyes he'd ever expected to see. Winchester's.

* * *

***September 22nd 2009 22:05***

* * *

Aaron forced himself to ignore Danton. Instead he found Winchester. Sam looked away from the dead agent, focusing all his attention on the man that was barely hanging on to life. It didn't seem like Sam had exaggerated his skills, but with the lack of tools and first aid equipment, Hotch didn't think that Johnny would last the hour.

They couldn't stay here, he knew that. They were sitting ducks. The place was almost impossible to defend, they didn't have enough look out points to spot anyone coming from outside and the first attack had already shown that they were vulnerable from above.

"We can't stay in here. They'll kills us all if we do." Reid voiced Aaron's own thoughts. Sam looked up for a second. Hotch wasn't sure what he could read in the young man's eyes. Guilt, pain. Blame aimed at himself.

"But where can we go? We don't know the area." Grayson rearranged his windbreaker over his bulletproof vest. After what had happened in Monument, they were compulsory when dealing with Winchesters. Yet even wearing one, hadn't saved Jimmy or Danton.

"Maybe." Sam spoke up, they all turned to him."Maybe you should go with his idea." His being Danton. "Use me." Hotch could see a dozen situations, all of which would end badly. "He was right, they won't shoot you, if they think that killing me would bring the devil into play."

"No."

"Why not? They're going to kill us all if you don't." Not all of us, they wouldn't kill Winchester, not right away and Sam knew it. Yet Sam had still included himself in the 'us'. Reports did say that Sam was supposed to be the more social of the two brothers.

"Because you're in my custody, Winchester. And I'm not in a habit of risking a prisoner's life." That and Sam might be helpful and friendly right now, but that didn't mean he wouldn't try to use the opportunity for an escape attempt.

Sam flinched back. Distrust played in his eyes. "They're not going to kill me."

Hotch simply looked at him, holding the younger man's eyes without blinking. Sam almost instinctive changed his stance, stood straighter as if under inspection. "Yes sir!", was all he said, before he backed off.

Hotch kept looking at Sam, taking care of injuries definitely wasn't the only thing that John Winchester had taught his sons.

Reid was eyeing his crutch as if it were something evil. Hotch could understand why. Firefights weren't Reid's strength to begin with, add the crutches to that and the young doctor had to be feeling more vulnerable than ever.

"So how do we get out of here?"

"I'll let you know as soon as I find out."

Suddenly there was the sound of metal moving against something. Hotch first looked up, trying to find out if they had any more attackers coming down. It didn't take him long to realize that the sound was coming from beneath them.

There was one door that they'd just blocked with one of the heavy metal tables, the one to the basement. Hotch shared a look with Grayson and the both of them pushed the table aside. Then he raised his gun, and checked the door. He didn't even need to step down the stairs, as he looked right up at a young girl. She was seventeen, eighteen at most. She wore a white dress that had been pretty once and was now wet and filthy, her hair hung loosely around her face, her curls limp with mud. A large purple bruise covered one eye.

"Please help me." She said, right before falling into Hotch's arms.

* * *

***September 22nd 2009 21:10*

* * *

**

Emily could hear a dog barking and noticed a wide open door streaming in sunlight. She ignored it. There were footsteps up ahead of her and she followed them. A scratchy noise and then for a brief seconds she heard some vague notes as if out of a music box. It was silenced all too soon.

Footsteps again.

"Halt, FBI!"

Her flashlight hit a smiling face and before she could shoot the figure ducked out of the way. She heard another sound and aimed her gun at it. Growling, a badly kept dog was whining in the back. It was sitting over something.

The figure was gone and Emily went over to check what he'd been looking at. It was a woman's jacket, covered in stains. Emily backed away and kept her gun at ready. She heard sobbing coming from her left and stared into a room that seemed to have naturally formed out of a cave. There were candles all over it, lit ones, unlit ones. In the middle in the circle of light was a young black girl. Sleek brown hair tied behind her back and tears filled her eyes. There were more than one set of chains beside her, but she was the only one there.

The girl was crying.  
"Sharon Miller?" Emily asked. The girl looked up and stared at her.

"Please no more, it hurts." She whispered. The girl was covered in cuts, small superficial ones and most of them looked clean, as if someone had been wiping away the blood.

There wasn't a key in sight.


	14. Chapter 13

***September 22nd 2009 21:35*

* * *

**

If David didn't know better, he'd have to say that the man sitting in front of him now, was an entirely different person from the one he'd spent the past few hours interrogating.

Jimmy Novak was angry, though not really with them, but with Castiel. He hadn't said it in so many words, but Rossi could feel the tension whenever he mentioned his alt's name. Rossi didn't think that Jimmy was aware of everything his alt did, but he knew his other half existed.

Jimmy's stomach rumbled and he looked embarrassed. "Sorry, I haven't eaten in well… in over half a year really. Castiel always forgets to eat."

Rossi looked at him. "Forgets?"

"Well he doesn't need it, being an angel and all. The last time I was out, I couldn't even begin to explain how good it was to put my teeth in a hamburger." Then Novak flinched.

"You know my name, right? You called me by my name. Do you know where my family is?"

"Your family?"

"Amelia and Claire. I couldn't, I couldn't stay. But Cas promised they'd be safe. That the demons wouldn't get to them. Do you know where they are?"

Rossi didn't know what to answer to that. He could feel the worry in the man's tone, but all he could think of was the report of how Amelia and Claire Novak had gone missing, right after James Novak had been spotted in the area.

"I'm sorry."

The man lowered his face, letting it drop on his hands. "He promised."

* * *

***September 22nd 2009 21:10***

* * *

She ran. Derek fought his way to his feet. His head was bursting at the seams and he stared up at Winchester who seemed to be divided between staying with him and going after Burns. The first one out. Derek found himself pushed to the floor while Winchester knelt down next to him.

"She got you pretty bad. Best to stay down for a while. You might have a concussion."

Derek didn't know what to say to that. He wasn't used to unsubs caring about what happened to him. He eyed Winchester, the man had a wood axe in his hand and seemed to wield it with the comfort that came from carrying blades on a regular basis.

Winchester got to his feet and Derek tried to raise his gun. It didn't take the man more than a few seconds to kick it out of his hands. "Sorry buddy, but I think we'll all be better off if I keep that one." He picked Derek's gun from the floor.

He gave Derek one last look, before he went up to the sink and tore off the sleeve of his overall. The water poured out of the sink and onto the piece of fabric. Winchester didn't seem to be too happy about it, before Derek found it held over his wound.

"I'll check up on you after I've taken care of Mrs. Robinson."

"Dean, don't…" his breathing hoarsened into a mere whisper. Winchester seemed to almost feel sorry for him.

"It's my job, Agent," he picked up Derek's badge and looked at it, "Morgan. Ever realized that? Killing evil things and saving people, the family business. No matter what the risks."

"But what if she isn't an… evil thing." Derek had a hard time staying awake. His skull was drumming on his brain.

"She took innocent children and turned them into monsters, made them hungry enough to kill people and probably damned their souls. If that doesn't make her evil, then I don't know what does."

"She's just sick, Dean. Sick and twisted and behaving in a way that's monstrous, but she's just a woman. She's not a creature. Killing her won't change anything, it'll just…" and then he had to stop talking not to choke.

Dean found a cup and gave him some water. The man still held Derek's gun in his hand.

"What if you're wrong? Ever considered that agent?"

"Have you?"

Winchester gave him one last look and left.

* * *

***September 22nd 2009 21:25*

* * *

**

"It's unfair. Dean keeps nagging about how the angels want to force them into destiny? But they hang around with Cas, and not a single one of them actually wonders what it's like for me to have Castiel playing around with my body."

Novak was munching on a burger.

"And yeah, I know it's my own fault. I shouldn't have consented the first time around. I feel so stupid now. But I thought… I thought it was my chance to do something important, something meaningful." He took a few more bites. "It was pride, pure and simple, the idea of having an actual real life angel coming up to me and telling me I was special. That 'he' needed me. That God actually needed me for something." He put down the burger.

"And I never bothered… never bothered to think of what it would do to Amelia, what it would actually mean to do what he asked me to. I was just so damn stupid."

Miller stared at the man, sitting there in the cell, eating.

"And then I had a chance to get out, home free and I… he took my Claire. He had to, we all would have died if he didn't. But he took my little girl and I looked at him coming out through her eyes. And I couldn't not… I couldn't not beg him to take me back. I couldn't let him take Claire, steal her life away and make her no more than a tool to be used. I wanted her to have a life."

Miller handed over a bottle of water.

"Don't ever trust an angel Sheriff, their PR might be better, but when it comes down to it, they're as bad as the demons."

"I don't want to lose my Sharon."

"No parent worth his salt wants to outlive their children. It's just not right." Novak took a sip from the bottle. "But sometimes… some things that can happen to you, they're worse than dying."

"You!"

"Look, I don't know what happened to your girl, but Cas is yammering something about her being dangerous. And he's usually more stoic than that."

"Cas?"

"Yeah, he's starting to wake up. Seems like he hit a wall, or a seal when he got Dean out of here. He's also somewhat embarrassed that he didn't think of that before doing it. It's weird how a being with no emotions, can be so emotional, if you know what I mean."

"You're nuts."

Novak just huffed at that and took a bite of his second burger. Getting a smudge on his shirt, he didn't seem to care.

"Miller. Out! Now!"

He looked back, and saw the agent standing there.

"Look, I just wanted."

"I should arrest you for obstructing a federal case. Damn it man. Have you lost your mind? You're not supposed to be anywhere near Novak or anything to do with this case"

"I just thought …"

"I don't care what you were thinking." Rossi stood there like a stern parent. "The way you're acting, you could get our entire case thrown out the door. Leave."

Miller took one last look at the man sitting in the cell, still eating his hamburger. Rossi threw him another glare, but Miller could see the understanding in his eyes. It was that more than the anger that made him leave. He got out and tried not to notice the looks of pity in his deputies faces.

His side was hurting him, Sharon hadn't meant to do anything. She was just a little girl. His little girl.

"She could be saved. " He turned around, not sure what he was hearing. He looked around again. There was a man standing there. He was dressed simply in a grey jeans vest over a brown shirt and dark jeans. His skin was even darker than Miller's own. But it was his eyes that stood out the most. Sad, intense and oddly scary. "All of them could be."

"What? How, who are you?"

"I am Raphael." Miller swallowed, remembering every lesson he'd ever learned in Sunday school. Saint Raphael the Archangel.

iSaint Raphael of the glorious seven who stand before the throne of Him who lives and reigns, angel of health, the Lord has filled your hand with balm from heaven to soothe or cure our pains./i He shrugged it off. "Not another one." Miller was about to call for help.

He suddenly found himself in a place outside of town. There was a small cottage standing in front of him, Trash lay on the ground all around him. A burst of lightening sliced through the air, dark clouds backed away from them, leaving them in a circle of light as the rain evaporated around them and Miller stared at the electric wings that seemingly appeared on the man's back.

"Your daughter is in there." The man said in a whisper, as if the angel were unused to having a voice.

"Sharon?"

The angel stared up at heaven."I healed her." The way he said the words it sounded as if he were talking about fixing up a car. "As a sign of good faith to Dean Winchester, to show that I could fulfill my side of the bargain, were he to consent."

"Consent to what?"

The man looked at him. "It is the apocalypse. Nothing will prevent that. Dean Winchester is Chosen. He is destined to be the Sword of Michael, the body and Vessel of the most powerful of my brothers. But he selfishly refuses to play his part. Without Michael, heaven cannot win the war against Lucifer. Without Michael, Lucifer gains more ground with every passing day. And we… cannot go home. Forced to remain here, in this…world filled with misery and suffering. A world without our Father, without God."

"Yeah? So what does that have to do with Sharon?"

"Your daughter is a damned soul, her surrender to her nature, the death she was a part of, has condemned her to hell." It was shock that held him back from hitting the bastard. Pure shock that made him just stand there as the so-called angel continued. "Were Dean to slay her, her soul will suffer for all eternity." Miller stood there, he couldn't seem to close his mouth. "In my eternal mercy I offered a way out. Were Dean to consent, Sharon and all the other children Dean was forced to slay, will regain their humanity and with it, a chance to redeem their souls. All he has to do, is say 'yes' to Michael."

Miller stared at the man, the angel. He wasn't even sure if there were any words to describe what he felt.

"Will you help me Donald Miller? Will you help me gain Dean Winchester's consent?"

i Heal or cure the victim of disease, and guide our steps when doubtful of our ways./i

Donald stared up at him and nodded: "Yes."

* * *

***September 22nd 2009 22:10***

* * *

The temperature in the room dropped to sub zero, it didn't have far to go. This place was cold as it were and the rain only made things worse. It wasn't the rain that pushed out all the heat. It was the looks between Marissa Torke and Sam Winchester.

Sam had wanted them to test her, holy water, the name of God, something. However, the girl got so scared of the way he was acting that Hotch had pulled her away and was now trying to keep her out of Winchester's line of sight.

"I got so scared." She was saying. "Dad and the others, they were talking about the devil, and then they shot those cops. I tried to leave, but dad wouldn't let me. I begged him to stop and then he…" she didn't finish the line, but it was obvious she meant the bruises on her face.

The girl seemed lost, helpless, and yet, Reid couldn't help the feeling that her getting in here was a bit too easy. She said it was because she used to play around the diner when she was a kid. Reid couldn't even say just what felt off about it.

"They said he's the devil, or will be. Please don't make me go near him."

Sam was whispering something over the bottle of water he was using to wet the rag he used on Agent Martins. Reid hadn't even been able to get Agent Danton's body to a safer location.

Marissa claimed to be terrified, and she sure had a good act going. Then Reid noticed that Hotch still hadn't released the gun he'd been holding. It was mostly Agent Rayner who'd been comforting the girl.

Sam had got to his feet. Reid was just about to head towards him and keep an eye on him, when he noticed Sam had left the bottle open. He was about to say something, about grabbing the cap before they lost it when Sam turned towards Marissa.

His movement was fast enough to turn the water towards the girl, she backed off and screamed. Reid grabbed Sam's arm, and pulled him back, Hotch already had his gun.

"What did you put in that water?" Marissa had pulled away, hiding behind Rayner.

"She's a demon." Sam said, "just look at her."

It was dark, but it almost seemed like steam coming from the girl where the water had hit her. It had to do with the temperature in the room, cold water on warm skin. Their breath was almost a fog.

"It's nothing more than evaporation, Sam, The water molecules spontaneously became gaseous due to exposure to the heat of Marissa's skin."

Sam snorted at that. "God Reid, you'd really be willing to believe just about anything, before the truth, wouldn't you?"

He took another step forward, Reid held on to his arm, Marissa took another step closer to the agent. Hotch cocked his gun.

It was a stand-off, get Sam to stay back, have Reid stop him, keep…

All of a sudden everything changed. One moment Marissa was hiding behind Rayner, the next she was holding a knife to the agent's throat. None of them knew where she'd got it from.

"You always were too smart for your own good, Sammy."

Sam froze, he swallowed for a moment, before tensing up. "Meg."

* * *

***September 22nd 2009 21:35***

* * *

Emily checked the room, desperate to find a key. She needed to get the girl down now.

"Noooo!" She stared up at the woman standing in the door. Clarissa Burns looked terrible, her makeup smushed up on her face. The outfit she was wearing was probably supposed to look sexy and instead made her look like a mentally imbalanced Goth hooker.

The woman seemed agitated. She was pacing. Emily wasn't sure what to do. Clarissa had a gun in her hands, a shotgun. Emily couldn't even be sure if it was armed or not.

"She's mine." The teacher was mumbling. "All mine, my daughter, she'll be my mother. She'll turn me, Stan didn't, couldn't, the hunter got to him first, but not her, you won't get her, you won't get her!!!"

Emily tried to find something to say to calm the woman down before she started shooting. With Sharon right behind her, she couldn't just duck for cover.

"Clarissa, I'm not trying to hurt her. See." Emily carefully lowered her gun. "I'm trying to help her, help you. Before the Hunter gets here."

"Hunter, the hunter killed my Stan, killed our girls."

"Yes, he did. But he won't get Sharon. I promise. But you have to calm down, let me help you…"

"No! You're lying. You're one of them, one of the Hunters. Stan said they'd come, if there's one, there'll be more. They're nearly all gone, all the beautiful children of the night, all the vampires, Hunters wiped them all out, gone, gone, forevermore. But we'll bring them back, we will…" Emily didn't even try to interrupt her, instead she backed away slowly, trying to get in front of Sharon to protect her.

She noticed a shadow coming up behind the woman Morgan? Then she realized she was wrong as Sheriff Miller grabbed Burns' arm, trying to get the gun away from her. A shot rattled and before either of them could say anything, Miller was forced up against the wall, bleeding.

"Daddy!" Sharon screamed. Burns grabbed her gun and aimed it at the man.

"You won't take her, take her, no, not my girl, not…"

Another shot echoed through the room. She expected to see Derek, instead Winchester stood there, holding a gun aimed at Burns' head. He shot her again, as if expecting her to get back up again. A gun in his left, an axe in the right, he raised it over the woman's neck, before he poked her with his foot.

He seemed surprised when she didn't get back up. Miller was getting back off the wall, but Winchester ignored him and knelt down next to the body, ready for anything. Then he lifted Clarissa's head and pushed his finger in between her lips, staring at something inside her mouth. "Son of a bitch. She's human?"


	15. Chapter 14

***September 22nd 2009 22:35***

* * *

Meg grinned and before Sam could move, she was backing off to the door, still holding the agent hostage.

"You have no idea how easy this was Samuel. No idea whatsoever. Humans, they talk so much about their God given free will, their ability to choose. But when it comes down to it, they'll follow orders the first moment they get the chance.

All I had to do was offer some hints, a few words that seemed to come out of nowhere and 'Daddy dearest' was all ready to come slay the Devil in Sam Winchester."

"Dean will get here." Or Cas.

"Dean," and she said his brother's name with utter scorn, "will be lucky not to be stuck in a straitjacket for the rest of his life."

"You're wrong."

She just grinned and Sam could feel death trickling down his spine.

"Our father is coming, Sam. He would have been here sooner, but you know how it goes. Busy busy busy…."

"All I have to do is keep you here and our father's reward for my faithfulness will never end."

* * *

***September 22nd 21:45***

* * *

Jimmy could feel it before it happened. Cas was waking up. He was still sitting behind the table when it started; they'd locked his hands and feet to a ring and he was starting to get bored. He wondered if they left him here because they didn't have a clue what to do with him, or because of some mysterious cop reason.

It felt like a song, first the soft memory, then a murmur until it became overwhelming and he was lost inside of it.

"Cas please, just a bit longer." Something, someone listened. It was like being scrutinized under a magnifying glass. A soft apology for the need, a touch that was meant to be guilty, but felt like fire. "I understand."

And he became the whisper.

Castiel stood up from behind the table and stepped out of the shackles, they fell down on the floor beside his feet. He could see the humans standing behind the door and brushed past their souls. His wings rustled up against the air as he moved past them, a second out of step with time.

He didn't bother to walk through the halls this time, he knew where he was meant to go, he knew it inside and out, vessel and grace.

It was just a door, a simple door. The Enochian sigils on it, more of a reinforcement than the actual force blocking him in. He placed his Vessel's fingertips in the opening, the air rippled to his touch. It felt like being tethered, his wings pulled down and his grace ground into this building, reinforcing it as his prison.

Was this what it felt like to Lucifer to be bound in hell? He felt small, insignificant, confined. It itched his gut and burned in his eyes.

"Novak."

He remembered that voice, the FBI agent Rossi. Another ripple. There was something, it was tiny, like a needle point, but it broke wider in the seal. He pulled at it.

"Jimmy what are you doing?"

A few more tugs, pulling at something so small that it made atoms look big.

"Castiel?"

He turned back to the man, for one last moment.

"Thank you."

Then he forced himself through the break in the seal.

* * *

***September 22nd 2009 21:45***

* * *

Winchester stood still, his eyes fixated on the girl. She was bleeding from cuts all over her body. Emily didn't know what the man saw when he looked at the girl, but she knew she had to do something, stop him. Morgan came up behind him, but he seemed to be staggering, as if it took him an effort to stay on his feet. He held a bloody rag to his forehead.

"Drop your weapons, now!" Winchester seemed to hesitate. Instead he gave the girl another look, before turning to the two men.

"He did it. The bastard actually did it. "

Emily had no idea what he was talking about. Miller ignored them both and ran up to his daughter, staring up at the chains.

Winchester pushed the axe towards Emily without a word. She picked it up and let it come down on the lock. Sharon was down a few seconds later. The girl was crying.

Winchester leaned up against the wall and sank down. Morgan had to hold on to a chair just to stay up. Emily held her gun aimed at Winchester, while making a call to the station at the same time.

"The bastard did it." Dean repeated. Morgan grabbed a pair of cuffs from his belt. Winchester just stared at him. "Stupid fucking archangel." Derek took a step back as Winchester got up, Emily still held her gun on the man as he started rambling on. "I thought he was lying, that he was just making something up, to get me to say 'yes'. But the bastard actually did it."

"Dean, you need to surrender, now." Morgan stated, his breathing harsh. "I'm willing to speak up for you in court, for saving my life. But you need to let me cuff you now."

Dean glared at him. "You don't get it, you really don't get it. I probably sound bugfuck crazy to you, right? But it's all true. Raphael, he said he'd bring them back, he said he could do it. The girl she's… she's down payment. He cured her . He can actually cure vampires." Dean swallowed."And now she's alive, has a chance at redemption. But it won't last, not unless I…"

Dean kicked at one of the candles on the floor, kicking it over.

"Bastard!"

"Dean!"

Winchester didn't care. He just lashed out, kicking over another one of the candles, melted wax poured out on the floor.

The girl fell in her father's arms and started crying.

"It's ok sweetie. Everything's going to be fine." The man's eyes stayed on Winchester.

"I didn't want to hurt her daddy. " Emily wasn't sure she was hearing it right. "But it hurt, like I'd never stop being hungry. And it looked… I didn't mean to kill her."

"Kill?" The sheriff froze.

"We were so hungry and then they let us go, and I wanted a burger, but all I could see was the girl. I don't know what happened, we all started drinking, and we couldn't stop. I'm sorry daddy, please don't hate me."

Miller seemed in shock, but he held his daughter even tighter.

"They're just children." He whispered. "Raphael said he'd bring them back. All of them. Make them human again. And all I had to do, was say 'yes' to Michael."

* * *

***September 22nd 2009 22:40***

* * *

The reverend was praying again, hoping for answers. But he was foul, wrong, working for the demons instead of God. Marissa had told him so. Poor Marissa who was hurting, because her father hit her. Her father who was supposed to protect her.

Vinnie checked his magnum, he loaded it and checked its barrels. He watched as the men shared a thermos of hot coffee amongst them. It was cold here and even their windbreakers didn't protect them from the wind and rain.

Marissa had begged him for his help, they couldn't let the reverend ruin this for them. They had to do God's work and the unfaithful needed to be put down before they endangered the work of the Lord.

Amen.

The reverend was talking to the so called faithful, the ones that would listen to the reverend over the work of God, the ones that had stood back while the reverend hit his own doctor and beat her into obedience.

Vinnie aimed his gun and started pointing it at faces. Tom who kept leering at his Marissa, Donald who kept calling up his wife, just because she was about to give birth, Arnold, Luis …all the reverend's men.

Then he shot, the reverend was the first to go. He shot again, and again, and again, by the time he got to his third shot, Arnold had managed to get his gun out of his pants, but by then it was too late.

"Why?" Luis asked, right before he died. The three others just tried to run as Vinnie grabbed more bullets to go after them.

"Because I have to." Vinnie whispered.

* * *

***September 22nd 2009 22:05***

* * *

"So why don't you?"

Dean stared at his hands, at the blood still underneath his nails. "I can't."

"Why not?" Miller stared at him, still holding his daughter. "Are you that much of a coward?"

Dean wanted to hit him for that. How did this bastard dare, how did he think he could… But then he took a deep breath, forcing himself to stay put. The man was worried for his family, he had every right to ask the question. And there were times that Dean couldn't help ask the same question.

Was he really just refusing because he was too much of a coward? Because he'd seen what happened to Raphael's Vessel once the angel had vacated it? The poor guy was left as nothing but a sack of vegetables, a drooling mess that was a waste of life. Even with the thoughts of pretty young nurses washing him because he was incapable of doing so, the very thought of becoming that helpless, that needing, it was the worst horror he could imagine. He almost hoped that when Cas said Michael would be worse, that he'd meant that Dean would die when the angel left.

He tried to come up with an explanation, but they all felt wrong.

"I don't trust them, the angels. So far, I've only met two of them that are worth a damn, the rest of them are dicks."

"So you're willing to damn the world, because you don't like them?" Dean sat still. The two feds just stood there. They clearly didn't have a clue what Miller and him were talking about. Well sucks to be them.

"Aren't you going to answer him, Dean?"

And it was then that Dean noticed the Archangel standing there and it hit him. The angel hadn't just arrived, there'd been no sound of wings fluttering in the air. No, Raphael had never left. He'd just been watching, waiting for Dean to come up with his answer. Hiding, invisible to anyone he didn't want to see him, just like he'd said.

Why did he keep saying no? Because of Zachariah? Because he didn't want angels deciding humanity's fate? Because he despised destiny and wanted nothing to do with it?

Or was it because he was scared, because he was a coward?

Raphael stood in the shadows, light shining around him.

"**Saint Raphael, angel of health, of love, of joy and light, pray for us." He heard the words coming from Miller's mouth and knew they sounded familiar. He'd probably heard them in Pastor Jim's church once upon a time. They held a faith that Dean had lost the night his mother died. **

**Dean closed his eyes."If you are cruel enough to let her die," Dean said, "You can forget about me ever saying yes, because I'll never trust you spineless heartless soulless sons of bitches ever again. "**

"It is your choice Dean."

"No, it isn't. It's yours."

"Please, don't let her die." Miller was crying, the six foot two man built like a linebacker was actually crying. "I can't lose her too." He stared up at Raphael. "Was my faith in you that wrong? When I was a child, and my mother was sick, my grandmother made us pray to you.

**You are Raphael the Healer,  
You are Raphael the Guide,  
You are Raphael the Companion  
Ever at Human sorrow's aide.**

Was all that a lie? Did I pray to you for nothing when my mother was coughing, when we held her in the night, to keep her from choking on the phlegm? Did I pray for nothing when my wife was in a coma, when my daughter was taking care of her little brothers, because I couldn't let go of my wife's hand?

Please tell me, is heaven a lie?"

The desperation in his voice rang through Dean.

"Let her die, let those children rot in hell, and I'll never say "yes"."

The archangel looked at him and Dean tried to stand up and be strong, wondering why the feds weren't moving, why they were just standing there.

Raphael stared at him in that way that when Cas did it, seemed to mean he was looking right into your soul. Then he turned to the girl and placed his hand on her head.

"The almighty and merciful Lord grant _you_ pardon and forgiveness of all _your_ sins, time for amendment of life, and the grace and strength of the Holy Spirit. By my grace, by the power of heaven, bless absolution upon you and your sisters."

It was as if a wave of power coiled through the room. It wasn't like the display of power he'd shown when Dean had first met him. This was almost soothing, a balm against the heat, a freedom of pain and Dean had to hold back a tear.

"Your answer Dean?"

"No."

"Michael will change your mind, boy."

Dean could feel something tighten in his throat. This was it, it was over. He'd never tell anyone, but it was almost a relief.


	16. Chapter 15

***September 22nd 2009 22:39***

**

* * *

  
**

What the hell was wrong with this town? Was it something in the water that turned everyone in it insane? The Winchesters, those guys outside, now this girl? Reid grabbed his gun and shot. The girl finally stopped focusing solely on Sam and turned to him, she didn't even flinch. For a moment he wondered what was wrong with his gun. Even if she'd been wearing a bullet proof vest, the impact should have still hurt her more than she was showing.

Then he noticed a bloodspot growing in her chest, and yet, she still stood there. Drugs, strong enough to keep her from feeling the pain, they probably made her feel stronger as well. Suddenly he felt something grab him and throw him against the wall. It was insane, it was impossible, Hotch went next. One moment he was standing ready to shoot, the next he was flying in the air. The way he landed, Reid wanted to run over immediately and check up on him, but he couldn't move.

"How?" he tried to ask, but she was already turning back to Sam. "Now Sammy boy, how would you like me to kill your new friends, by blade or by hand. Your pick."

"I'll kill you first." Sam muttered, Reid couldn't believe he was actually putting his hope in a wanted serial killer for saving them. Worse than that, he didn't care. He just wanted to get out of here, go to that lecture he'd planned to go to, finish reading that book a friend of his had send him, anything not to die here in a way that made him feel he was going insane, just thinking of it.

"Oww poor little Spencer, so so scared of going insane like dear sweet mummy. Let me tell you a secret, your mommy, she wasn't born insane, she was driven there."

"What are you talking about?"

"Ask Dean what happens when one of the featherbrains leaves your body, once you've got the chance. As it turns out, dear old Mrs. Reid was lucky she got out as well as she did. "

* * *

***September 22nd 2009 22:12***

* * *

Castiel can see his brother's grace before he enters the room. The archangel's light fills the essence of all that lives inside of it. He feels dread cross his spine, but then he sees Dean and he realizes that he has no choice. He has allied himself with Dean, given up heaven for Dean's ideas of right and wrong. To turn on that, to go against that belief now, would betray what little foundation his life has left.

No matter how much he fears Raphael.

"Castiel." His name is said with revulsion. He remembers how his brothers named Lucifer after he rebelled and it hurts, savagely so, to hear that same kind of hate aimed at himself. But most of all, it sounds as if Raphael wasn't expecting him. It makes him wonder how he got out.

He knows not to ask his brother. Instead he quickly grabs Dean by the shoulder and has them both out of the room before Raphael can try and protest. They end up in the next state over before Castiel dares to stop running.

"Damn it, Cas, your timing gets better and better."

Castiel can't help but smile under the praise.

"We need to get back to the station."

Cas is shocked.

"I'm not leaving the Impala in those feds' hands. Besides, we need to get Ruby's knife back. Not to mention all the other stuff from the trunk that's almost impossible to replace."

Castiel can't help but think of the knife he'd handed over. He'd really like to get that one back. So he tilts his head and places a hand on Dean's shoulder.

Dean almost resists and then shrugs, "Two to beam up, Scotty."

"But my name isn't Scotty, " Dean just smiles, lifts an eyebrow and then looks at him in a way that seems to say, i'so what's keeping you?/i'.

Castiel bites his Vessel's lips and brings them both back to the police station; to the place where he senses his weapon. It is ringing in his grace, missing him, almost as much as he has missed it.

Dean just grabs a bag and starts throwing in whatever he can find. Castiel doesn't think that all the weapons Dean grabs were his, but he has learned better than to ask him about this.

Instead he finds a bag filled with white powder. He stares at it, not quite understanding what's in it. It looks a bit like salt, only the chemical analysis is all wrong.

Dean grabs the bag away from him and wags his finger at him.

"Bad Cas, bad bad Cas. No touching the heroin, it's not good for angels."

It only adds to his curiosity.

* * *

***September 22nd 2009 22:45***

* * *

Vinnie follows the sewers. He'd been there before. When he was fifteen, he'd done a job for the city sewer system. That had been right before the diner closed down. He's not sure if he remembers the stench being worse then, than it is now. He can't quite imagine it.

He's reloading his gun and wipes a bloodied hand over his scalp.

Marissa was inside, all alone, and he needed to be there to protect her, no matter how much of God's presence was with her. She was only a girl after all, his girl. His Marissa. He got through the grid and ended up in the basement of the diner. Back before, the owner had been coming on and off to bring them coffee and hot biscuits when they'd been working here. She'd had that low cut shirt and Vinnie and the guys he was working with, had loved to see her bend over when she dropped something.

The landing field never quite took off like the owner had planned it too, and the diner closed, bankrupt. The owner had left town shortly afterwards.

Vinnie moved up the stairs and pushed against the door, it seemed to be a bit stuck and he pushed against it, only to hear voices.

"What do you think will happen when your patsies find out what you really are, Meg?"

"Sammy boy, what do you take me for, I've already taken care of that. The morons were just to keep you here, to keep you in place. But now that I've got you, they're … expendable."

Sammy, that was Satan's Vessel, the one they'd come here to find.

He finally opened the door.

"Marissa?"

"Hey Vinnie, did you take care of the others?"

"Yeah." He stared up at the scene, not quite understanding what he was seeing. "What's going on?"

How had that one guy ended up pinned to the wall like that?

"Vinnie here's my good friend, aren't you Vinnie."

Vinnie wondered about the fed that Marissa was still holding on to. Then she cut the guy's throat and dropped him on the floor.

"Marissa?"

She grabbed his hand and pulled him in for a kiss, Sam seemed to be about to interfere when the second fed flew up against the wall as well.

He wanted to ask her what was happening, powers like these they weren't human, they weren't right. But then she was kissing him and he couldn't quite say a word.

"What did you do to him Meg?" Sam seemed to ask her.

"Nothing, I just gave him everything he ever wanted. Didn't I Vinnie?" he pulled her close, his hand brushing her hair.

"Marissa?" he asked once more.

"I kissed him and held him tight and let him fuck me, just like he's been wanting to do to dear darling Marissa ever since she was fourteen, and he saw her play in the yard with the sprinkler. When her shirt got wet and he could see she was starting to turn into a woman."

There was something in her tone, it sounded cruel, hard, nothing like the girl he'd been in love with for years. "Marissa, you know that's not…"

"Marissa used to hide from him, she started wearing more clothes to keep out of his sight. She was so scared whenever dear old daddy left her alone with his trusted handyman. The son he never had."

"Marissa." He didn't understand.

"But Vinnie never noticed how much she despised him, how much he skeeved her out. I could hear her screaming inside the first time I kissed him. Her soul shuddered with every touch, with every word I said to him."

Vinnie backed away.

"That's right Vinnie. You're nothing but a sick little fuck to her. And I enjoyed every moment of pain it gave her to let you near her."

He slapped her. "What are you? What have you done to Marissa?"

She didn't even wince. And the next moment he flew against the wall as well.

"Such a sick little boy. That's why your momma threw you out, isn't it. Couldn't bear to be in the same room with you."

"Shut up!" He ended up against the ceiling, hitting it hard before falling to the floor, desperate to crawl back up.

"And to think Sammy, Ruby's host must have felt just as sick when Ruby slept with you. Can you even imagine her screams?"

* * *

***September 22nd 2009 22:25***

* * *

David couldn't believe it. He quite literally couldn't believe it. Winchester and Novak had actually returned. He watched them through the cameras and saw them going through the evidence locker as if they were a tornado. Well mostly Winchester. Novak was just staring at his knife.

He swallowed and stood there for a second, before pressing the alarm. Still shuddering, still believing he had to have a concussion, anything, because what he'd seen earlier was simply put impossible. Men didn't just disappear right in front of your eyes. It was impossible. In other words, it was either a trick, or he still hadn't recovered from the knock on the head or however else Novak had knocked him out earlier.

Winchester motioned them both towards the door and Rossi knew where they were heading before they took a step. He hoped he'd get there first, with all the cops in the duo's way, he should be.

The Impala stood gleaming in the moonlight, it looked dangerous. It was just a car, just a tool and yet….

Winchester didn't see him right away, instead he ran up to the car.

"God baby, what did they do to you?"David wasn't sure, but he had a guess that Winchester was talking about the trunk and the fact that it had been forced open, along with a thorough check for secret compartments all throughout the rest of the car. All they'd found was the stuff in the trunk, a box with old family pictures under the front seat, and a cell phone lying alongside a worn journal written by John Winchester under the dashboard.

David had given the journal a quick read before putting it down. As a direct look into madness, the journal was priceless. It stated John Winchester's view of the world, and through it Dean and Sam's perspective, in cold precise wordings. Short, simplistic, and terrifying in the idea it gave of all the murders John Winchester had to have committed over the years, just thinking of all the creatures he claimed to have destroyed.

What was even scarier was the description of the world that those boys had grown up in. Mentions of Dean's training of Sam's first successful hunt at age 12. The poor kids had never even stood a chance. Sure there was a mention of Sam playing soccer, but more in regards to how it stood in the way of him learning how to shoot a bow.

Every attempt at socializing was mentioned as a waste of time. Sam's attempt to leave the family business by going to college was described as a betrayal. Then it stopped, right in the middle of a hunt for 'a woman in white', only to be continued in a different handwriting. Dean's this time.

Both Winchesters' fingerprints had been all over the journal, adding little notes and additions and short little stories of ghosts and demons and even killer clowns.

The last notation was over a year ago. "It's over, just one more day and then hell. You damn well better take care of my baby for me, Sam."

Winchester was almost literally cooing over the car. The car. David almost slapped himself, thinking they'd actually been trying to find a hint about Winchester fathering a child somewhere. Of course it was the car! Novak on the other hand was just standing there, holding one of the bags that the two of them had liberated from the evidence locker. He didn't really seem to know what to do with them.

Winchester just opened the trunk and threw them in, David decided that was the perfect moment to show himself.

"Freeze."

Winchester just rolled his eyes. "What the hell is it with you people? It's not enough that you've got this fetish for orange outfits and chains, but you got to go mess with a dude's wheels?"

"You're under arrest, both of you." Rossi came out in the open, his gun aimed at both, though more at Winchester than at Novak. Not because Novak was less dangerous, he'd proven them wrong on that score already, but because Novak didn't seem to have even the slightest respect for guns.

"What about no?" Winchester just continued placing his stuff in the trunk. "I'm sorry pal, any other time I'd… still run for the hills. But right now, I've really got much more important things to deal with than talk on end to a bunch of cops who won't believe me, no matter how many times I tell them the truth."

"Damn it Winchester, this doesn't have to end this way. Surrender and I'll guarantee I'll do anything to help your case in court. But if you keep fighting, it'll just get you killed."

Winchester just smiled, he seemed somewhat sad. "It's too late for that Agent. What happens now…Whether I live or die, it doesn't matter. Just as long as we go fighting."

It was then that David realized that Novak had somehow managed to sneak up on him. He didn't understand how, one moment he'd been standing next to Winchester, the next…

And then he heard some strange whisper in words that made no sense.

"So where's Sam?" was the last thing he heard Winchester say, before he went out.


	17. Chapter 16

***September 22nd 2009 22:50***

* * *

"And to think Sammy, Ruby's host must have felt just as sick when Ruby slept with you. Can you even imagine her screams?"

Sam held back his emotions, the urge to throw up. He could barely hold back from strangling the bitch. That's what she wanted. For him to get angry, to try something, anything, knowing it'd be useless.

She'd already killed one of the feds, he couldn't let her kill the remaining three.

He could hear Reid breathing harshly in the background, Hotch, Hotchner was unconscious, and Johnny was bleeding all over his hands.

"Her body, it belonged to a coma victim. She was braindead."

"What? You thought that made a difference. Really Sammy? How stupid can you be?"

Was she lying, or was this one of those cases where the truth hurt worse than the lie?

"Can you feel it, Sammy? My father is coming."

"I thought you said Azazel was your father?" It was more of an attempt at distraction than anything else. "Or is this one of those, out of sight out of mind kinda things."

"I killed for you." The guy, Vinnie, started up again. He still hadn't got the message. Sam couldn't help thinking he'd killed demons for Ruby, killed that nurse for Ruby. Part of it had been to kill Lilith, but he'd… come to like her, trusted her.

"And you did it so nicely. Will you do it for me again Vinnie? I might let you kiss Marissa again, if you will." The man looked so desperate. "Pick any of the feds Vinnie, and kill him." Harsher, "kill him!"

Sam stared at the man, he couldn't be serious. "She's not Marissa you moron. Didn't you listen?"

"I'm sorry." Vinnie ignored him, "But it's the only way to make her love me again." Like a kid, apologizing that it was taking a flower out of mom's favorite bouquet.

Sam got up, ready to stop him. "No, don't!"

Vinnie pulled out a gun and started aiming it at the fed on the ground.

"Ow Vinnie, you can do better than that, that one's half dead already." She sounded so sugary sweet that it might as well bore holes through Sam's teeth. But this was serious as Vinnie changed the direction of his gun and aimed at Reid.

"For you, Marissa."

Sam managed to jump on him. A shot still got away. "Oh God, no." he looked up, expecting to see drops of blood flooding the floor. Instead he could feel the bullet ricocheting, back to the door, towards Meg. It kicked the demon right into the door and off her feet.

Reid fell to the floor, joined by Hotch and Sam ran over to help him up. Reid was already trying his phone again. "Federal officers down, federal officers down. Garber Airfield, officer down!"Then both he and Sam were smacked against the wall. Sam fought it, but ever since Lucifer had risen, he had no power left to fight with. He hated himself for wanting it back.

* * *

***September 22nd 2009 23:00***

* * *

Prentiss came running up to him, Derek barely managing to sit up before a paramedic pushed him back down. "It's Hotch and Reid, they're in trouble." Derek tried to get up again.

"Don't even think about it." The medic stated. "You've got a concussion. If you try and get up now, you'll just fall down before you get to your car."

Derek tried to protest, but no one was listening. Prentiss was already ordering the police towards the station. There was no one left but her, not since they'd somehow been knocked out and Winchester had gotten away from them.

By the time they'd come too, Miller had been muttering something about an archangel and absolution. None of it made the least bit of sense.

Winchester was gone, their unsub was dead, killed by Winchester, and from the looks of it, the local police would be finding corpses for days. He pet the small terrier that had joined him in the ambulance, wondering where it came from, before he was finally driven off to the hospital.

How much worse could things possibly go wrong?

* * *

***September 22nd 2009 23:00***

* * *

Dean drove more desperately than even he was used to. They needed to get to Sammy and all Cas could say was that he was supposed to have arrived at the airfield hours ago. Cas had suggested just bringing them there, and for a moment, Dean had been tempted. But no, if they did that, they'd have to leave the weapons behind and march unprepared into an unknown situation. Bobby would beat the crap out of him if he even considered doing something that stupid.

He parked the car and moved on through the darkness. He almost stepped on one of the bodies. The man's entire chest was covered in blood, his brains blown out. The crucifix around his neck was covered in blood. Another body was holding on to a bible. He didn't dare count the bodies. He heard a gunshot and pulled out his gun. It wasn't easy to stay in the dark, when you were dressed in bright orange, but somehow, he managed it. iHe was just that awesome. /i

"One of them was touched by an angel, and recently at that."

Dean pulled back in shock when Cas appeared right in front of that. iGee Cas, give a man a heart attack, why don't you./i

Then Castiel's words settled and Dean recalled his conversation with Zachariah: one of his angels had been in touch with the group, probably through their leader.

"March on Christian soldiers." Dean whispered. "Until your fricking angels get you killed." Dean wondered if it was the angel who'd told them to kill the cops who's uniforms some of them were wearing. An angel or something else.

"There is a demon inside the building."Castiel managed to sound urgent, well more so than he usually did. He really needed to get the guy to relax one of these days, preferably without pharmaceuticals. A nice long drinking game maybe?

"And you couldn't say that first?" iPriorities, Cas, please./i "So what about Sam?"

"He is there as well."

"Then let's get to it. I tell you Cas, I can't leave that kid alone for a minute, without him getting into trouble."

"I thought that it was your actions with the vampires that got you both into trouble." The angel said, somewhat confused.

"Tomato, tomatho."

Then Cas blinked out of sight. Dean just followed him in, hoping he'd still get there in time.

* * *

***September 22nd 2009 23:00***

**

* * *

  
**

What happened next made him pray, really pray, not just pretend pray, for the first time in years. Doctor Spencer Reid, skeptic, scientist, sane, iplease let me be sane, /iprayed.

It was a bright light, somewhat shaped in the form of a man, but a twisted man, dark and light and a song, a beautiful song rupturing the air around him. Reid felt himself stare at the 'being' as if he was looking at salvation. Then it stepped truly into the room and a man appeared, dressed in a cheap suit and a trench coat that had seen better days.

"Let them go now."

"Why, are you going to make me? Try, please"

The newcomer faced off with the girl when the door burst open and Winchester came through, holding a shotgun. He didn't even wait to start shooting, hitting the girl in the stomach.

"My oh my, if it isn't Dean Winchester. Come to the rescue?" The girl wiped the blood off of her mouth. She didn't sound quite as certain as she was trying to sound.

The guy in the trench coat was kneeling next to Sam and before Reid could even blink, Sam's shackles dropped to the floor. The next both the guy in the trench coat and Agent Martins were gone. He could barely remember Sam saying something about getting him out first.

The stranger was back before Dean had even managed to reload his shotgun. This time he appeared right next to the girl, his hand on her head. The girl screamed and Reid figured, that ino, he really was insane/i, when a black smoke erupted from the girl's mouth and her body fell limp.

Sam and Dean looked at one another, they didn't say a word, just stood there staring. Then Dean put his hand on Sam's shoulder and pointed at the door.

They were gone before he came too.

* * *

**Epilogue 1**

* * *

"Sam." Sam was sitting on the hood of the Impala. He hadn't even dared look at Dean. Dean in return didn't know how to face his brother. He'd planned to call him sooner. He had. But then Sam hadn't picked up his phone anymore. And the situation with the vampires had come up.

It was his fault. If only he hadn't been a fool and cast Sam out with that last phone call.

And now they were both wanted again, with the cops at their heels and Lucifer after Sam's ass.

He swallowed and faced his brother. Sam closed his eyes and got up. Dean pulled out Ruby's knife and held it in his hands. Sam almost flinched, but he didn't move. Hadn't he taught the boy better than that?

"If you're serious," Dean said, " if you want back in. You should hang on this. I'm sure you're rusty." The look of relief on Sam's face sat in front of him and Dean hated himself that he had ever made Sam doubt him like this. Things might never be the same again, but this was Sam, his Sam, still. He handed over Ruby's knife. But even that wouldn't be enough. "I'm sorry, I don't know, whatever I need to be, because I was wrong." iFor sending you out, for not keeping on to you, for making you think I'd ever hurt you. /i "I should have known better."

"What made you change your mind."Sam sat back down, the knife still in his hands. Dean could see the fear that if Dean changed his mind once, he might change it again. Dean was set to prove him wrong, set for anything.

"Long story."Dean humphed and shrugged. "The point is, maybe we are each other's Achilles heels, maybe they'll find a way to use us against each other. I don't know. I just know, we're all we've got. More than that, we keep each other human." And maybe with Sam here, he might have found a way to save more of those girls.

"Thank you, really, thank you. I won't let you down."

But it wasn't Sam who had let him down. Not that he could say that. So instead, "I know, you are the second best hunter on the planet."

"So what do we do now?" iLive?/i

"We make our own future." iNo matter how shitty it might be/i

"I guess we don't have a choice."

* * *

**Epilogue 2**

**September 23rd 14:45***

**

* * *

  
**

By the time Reid came too, he was lying in the hospital. The doctors were mostly concerned about the strain on his leg and the bruised ribs he had. They said it looked as if he'd been forced into something.

He wanted to tell them he'd been kicked into the ceiling without ever being touched, but didn't feel like getting himself an invitation to the psych unit. Hotch barely remembered what had happened to get him knocked out. Reid figured he was lucky. They'd put him and Morgan in the same room and the guy might be one of his best friends, but if he wasn't going to shut up about the food, Reid would… he would… Sometimes he wished he had an older brother to teach him about pranks to play on annoying coworkers.

Of course that probably would have meant being the victim of those pranks during most of childhood… It was worth considering.

Morgan was on the phone, talking to the Rockford police station. Something about a missing boy, and sending through his file. Derek had sat there, staring at the laptop until the file came through. When he saw the picture, it looked like… Derek didn't say a word, not right away. He just there, staring at the picture before he closed down his laptop. His eyes teared up, but he didn't make a sound. He dabbed away the tears and laid down, probably still hurting from the concussion, and being woken up every hour or so. Reid wasn't sure if he heard him right. "We got him Daniel, we got him."

Reid lay in his own bed, trying not to think. He'd tried to ask about the case, but all he'd got out of Hotch was that it was a full scale disaster. The Winchesters and Novak had escaped. Clarissa Burns and her boyfriend were both dead, killed by Winchester and the local police was still digging up bodies out of the woods behind Burns' home.

Sheriff Miller had resigned his office, before anyone had been able to ask it of him. He said he needed time to look after his daughter. She was in therapy, no one dared to even mention a possible trial. As far as they could see, Burns and her boyfriend had pretty much drugged and brainwashed the girls into going along with them. They were victims, pure and simple. Simple for everyone, but the girl who was still torn apart with guilt.

Hotch had been called in by Strauss. Reid didn't think it sounded good.

Reid sat there, staring at something impossible that Rossi had given him to keep his mind occupied until he was released. Something…

It was two pictures, of the same skull. One taken a week ago, one today. Both were pictures of the teeth and specifically the gums of one Alicia Johnson. The newest picture was… normal. For that of a body that had lay in the freezer for a week. But the first one… Reid couldn't stop staring at the spare teeth, no fangs, that came out of the gums, as the coroner pushed his fingers against the flesh.

The man had planned to build his career on this. He'd documented every second of his investigation. Then all of a sudden the girl's gums had returned to normal and the only proof he had left was the pictures he'd taken and one tooth, one fang that Reid was holding now, that he'd removed for inspection.

Reid stared at it.

"No way."

Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth  
Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep.  
~John Milton, _Paradise Lost_

_The End_


End file.
